


The Rules of Disorder

by ceinneidigh



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Blood Play, Bottom Will Graham, Cannibalism, First Time, Hand Jobs, Hannibal is Hannibal, Knife Play, M/M, Medical Kink, Medical Procedures, Medium Burn, Oral Sex, Possessive Hannibal, Prostate Massage, Sexual Tension, Top Hannibal Lecter, if thats a thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-27
Updated: 2018-07-27
Packaged: 2019-02-07 16:15:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 38
Words: 52,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12844851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ceinneidigh/pseuds/ceinneidigh
Summary: “I’ve forgiven you. Doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten.”“Perhaps a new beginning, then – for both of us.” Hannibal raised his eyebrows a fraction, his head tilting slightly.“Are you offering something?” asked Will, cautiously. They both knew what he was offering, if not the specifics, and Will was at war with himself. The part of him that knew it would be a terrible idea for all sorts of obvious reasons was beginning to give ground to the part that would always want to run away with Hannibal – the part that was compelled by the monster, fascinated in spite of himself. His pulse leapt almost imperceptibly.“An end to the chase.” Dr. Lecter’s deep maroon eyes held Will whole; he felt almost as paralyzed as he’d been under Cordell’s knife for a moment. Finally, he said,“Where would we go?”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This diverges from canon at the end of Digestivo. What if Will hadn't rejected Hannibal outright after the events at Muskrat Farm, but instead listened to the part of himself that would always want to run away with him? Will tries to figure out what "this" is. Hannibal helps.
> 
> https://i-intend-to-eat-them.tumblr.com/image/176318052589

RICHMOND, VIRGINIA

 

As Will gradually surfaced from the drug and exhaustion induced oblivion, the first thing that filtered into his hazy mind was that his jawline was throbbing miserably. Still fuzzy, his mind slowly puzzled over the cause of it; bits and pieces of memory came together and a bone deep, swooning horror shook him; the scalpel slicing into his skin, Cordell’s voice echoing in his paralyzed skull.

 

_“I’m going to cut off your face without anesthesia, Mr. Graham…”_

Will jerked fully awake with a gasp, his hands unconsciously flying to his face; he felt a line of neat, expert stitches across his jaw, but everything seemed to be intact. He stared wildly at his surroundings, heart hammering in the tight confines of his chest. This was not Muskrat Farm – the room he currently occupied, tastefully decorated in calm shades of gray and white, was obviously a hotel room. Not a seedy one, but nothing overtly luxurious either; it was every hotel room he’d been in when working cases out of state. Two queen sized beds (one of which he was sitting upright on, the covers rumpled around him), a desk with an office chair, flat screen television on top of a dresser. Mini fridge. The door to the en suite was closed, and he could hear the shower running.

 

Confused and wary, he gingerly swung his feet off the bed and stood up. He was wearing a soft gray t-shirt and black lounge pants that looked like they’d come brand new out of a packet from a department store. A quick rummage through the nightstand revealed nothing but a Gideon bible; not that he had really expected anything different – god only knew where his wallet and gun had ended up after Mason’s thugs had snatched he and Hannibal in Florence. _Hannibal_. He had hazy recollections of Dr. Lecter carrying him through the snow, the coppery stench of blood strong in his nostrils, mingling with the shock of cold, clean air; away from the pain and panic. His eyes flickered instinctively toward the bathroom door as the familiar sound of the shower stopped. A rollercoaster of mixed emotions flooded Will; he sat heavily on the edge of the bed and tried without success to organize his thoughts before he became overwhelmed.

 

He was still sitting there, staring silently at the bathroom door, when it opened moments later and Hannibal Lecter emerged from within, his wet hair combed neatly back from his brow and dressed as casually as Will. The scabs that remained from his brawl with Jack Crawford in Florence were still livid across the cleanly sculpted lines of his face; the one across his cheekbone was particularly bad and would undoubtedly leave a scar. A subtle flare of warmth crossed his face as he saw Will sitting upright; his eyes met Will’s, the dark maroon of dried blood in the lamplight.

 

“How do you feel, Will?” he inquired, “you’ve been unconscious for some time.”

 

“Thirsty,” said Will, “where are we?”

 

Dr. Lecter retrieved a bottled water from the mini fridge and handed it to Will, as he deposited himself neatly upon the edge of the other bed, facing him.

 

“Richmond,” he said. Will spun the cap off the water bottle as he drank thirstily, his glance fell upon the hotel stationery pad on the dresser; the top page was densely filled with mathematical equations that few could have followed. He looked back at Hannibal, his brow furrowed. The older man regarded him steadily for a long moment, and finally said,

 

“Do we talk about teacups and time and the rules of disorder?”

 

“The teacup is broken,” replied Will, heavily, “it will never gather itself together again.”

 

“Not even in your mind? Your memory palace is building - it's full of new things. It shares some rooms with my own; I've discovered you there. Victorious.”

 

“When it comes to you and me, there can be no decisive victory.” Will looked away from Hannibal, deliberately. He swallowed another mouthful of water.

 

“I don’t need a victory,” replied Hannibal his voice a soft rasp of Lithuanian, “what do you intend to do, Will?”

 

“I don’t want to chase you anymore,” said Will, flatly, “if you run, I won’t try to stop you. I can’t do this anymore.”

 

Hannibal was silent for a moment. Finally, he said,

 

“And if I choose not to run?”

 

Will looked up at him and blinked.

 

“You’d let yourself be caught?”

 

“Is that what you wish me to do, Will?” His expression was closed, unreadable. Will narrowed his eyes in suspicion, on guard.

 

“It doesn’t matter what I want,” he said, harshly, “don’t play any more games with me. I’m too fucking tired.”

 

“Yet the question remains.”

 

“If you choose not to run? What options do you think you have?”

 

“I can think of several. So can you.”

 

Will ran a hand over his face and was uncomfortably reminded of how many bruises he still had. At length, he said,

 

“This isn’t sustainable.”

 

“You crossed the Atlantic to forgive me; do you wish now to return to the FBI, to be Jack Crawford’s running dog? Or perhaps to let that remarkable mind rust from disuse as your hands mindlessly tinker with motors?”

 

Will glared at him.

 

“Better to rust from disuse than to be broken at your whim,” he snapped.

 

“Regret isn’t an emotion that I entertain often,” said Hannibal, holding his gaze, “but if I were able, I’d alter some facets of the past.”

 

“Was that an apology?” inquired Will, wryly.

 

“I believe you and I are past apologies.”

 

“I’ve forgiven you. Doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten.”

 

“Perhaps a new beginning, then – for both of us.” Hannibal raised his eyebrows a fraction, his head tilting slightly.

 

“Are you offering something?” asked Will, cautiously. They both knew what he was offering, if not the specifics, and Will was at war with himself. The part of him that knew it would be a terrible idea for all sorts of obvious reasons was beginning to give ground to the part that would always want to run away with Hannibal – the part that was compelled by the monster, fascinated in spite of himself. His pulse leapt almost imperceptibly.

 

“An end to the chase.” Dr. Lecter’s deep maroon eyes held Will whole; he felt almost as paralyzed as he’d been under Cordell’s knife for a moment. Finally, he said,

 

“Where would we go?”

 

“Wherever you like.” The corners of Hannibal’s mouth curved upward as he permitted himself a small smile. Will caught himself staring at it, and deliberately shifted his gaze toward the mediocre painting on the wall for a second.

 

“I’ll have to think about it,” he said, at last, then after a brief pause,

 

“How did we get here? I don’t even have my wallet, yet here we are at a Marriott in Virginia.”

 

“Chiyoh is very efficient,” replied Hannibal, “shall we order room service?”

 

Dinner was an experience that Will found delicious and even Hannibal found quite tolerable. Both men were hungry, and Will wolfed his cheeseburger; neither of them said anything until they had finished and left the tray in the hallway for collection. Hannibal, naturally, had ordered a bottle of the best wine he could find on the limited wine list, a Loire red that complimented the seared ahi tuna he’d ordered. He poured Will a glass as well.

 

“I want to go to Louisiana,” said Will, taking the glass from Hannibal’s hand and meeting his eyes, “there’s a house there – it’s been in the family for a long time, on my mother’s side. It’s been empty for years.”

 

Hannibal raised an eyebrow a fraction and savored a sip of his Bourgueil before replying.

 

“You know that Jack will track us down there,” he said, at length, “or is that the idea?”

 

“He will eventually,” replied Will, steadily, “but not right away.”

 

“And when he does?”

 

“I don’t know yet.”

 

Looking oddly pleased with this response, Dr. Lecter wore an expression of mild approval.

 

Will sipped his wine thoughtfully, and then inquired, bluntly,

 

“Are you going to try and eat my brain again?”

 

Hannibal, not apologetic, said,

 

“I promise, Will, that I will not try to consume any part of you.”

 

In an ironic tone, Will replied in kind,

 

“And I promise you, doctor, that I will not _try_ to kill you.”

 

“Did you come to Florence to kill me, Will?”

 

“You were right when you said that I came to Florence to forgive you,” said Will, after a moment, “but I wasn’t certain whether forgiveness would entail killing you or not.”

 

“We must all find our own paths to forgiveness,” agreed Hannibal, who had been unclear on those details himself.

 


	2. Chapter 2

The next morning, Chiyoh was there; inscrutable as ever, slender and deadly as a Yoshitomo blade in her black coat. Will hadn’t woken up when she’d come in, but naturally Hannibal was already up – he was fully dressed in the least flamboyant suit Will had ever seen him in, obviously designed to fit in with the business crowd in the hotel and surrounding area. It was charcoal gray, with a sober tie of an even darker gray; not even the ever-present pocket square was in evidence, and certainly no paisley or plaid. Will was mildly irritated to note that he still looked stupidly attractive in it, even with the cuts on his face. He was sitting in front of the desk with a cup of coffee and a beignet, Chiyoh standing beside the door with two large suitcases on the floor by her feet and what Will assumed was her long rifle case in her hand.

 

Will sat up, scrubbing a hand through his already unruly hair, and yawned.

 

“Hope you aren’t waiting for me,” he said, dryly.                

 

“Would you care for coffee, Will?” inquired Hannibal, “there are clothes in the closet for you when you’re ready.”

 

“Do they look like what you’re wearing? Because you look like a banker.”

 

“This hotel is near a convention center,” said Hannibal, “there is a seminar today for accounting professionals.”

 

“That’s even worse than bankers,” grumbled Will, reluctantly getting out of bed. He took one of the hot cups of Starbucks and disappeared into the en-suite with it and the suit bag he found in the closet.

 

While he was performing his hurried morning ablutions, Chiyoh faced Hannibal and said, quietly,

 

“I wish that you would reconsider. But I know that you will not.”

 

From within her coat pocket, she brought an envelope and passed it to him delicately with her gloved hand.

 

“I have been to Hiroshima,” she said; not that she needed to tell him who it was from – the faint scent of oranges and oil of cloves clung to the envelope. He stood and inclined his head a moment before opening it. Within, a sheet of paper contained beautifully brushed calligraphy. The verse, in Japanese, read simply,

 

_Before the white chrysanthemum_

_The scissors hesitate_

_A moment_

 

Chiyoh lifted the case she was carrying and placed it reverently upon the neat coverlet of Hannibal’s bed. Stepping away, she watched as he went to the bed in silence and opened the lid; he looked inside once, and caught his breath.

 

“Please tell my aunt that I will be honored to clean them once a year with oil of cloves … and that the blades will never grow dull,” he said, low pitched; then, he bowed to her, correctly as a samurai would.

 

“My lady tells me that Masamune-dono has given his permission for your guardianship of them,” said Chiyoh, a little sadly, “you have his warrior’s heart.”

 

With that, she left the case with Hannibal, and walked out of the room without looking back. Hannibal looked after her for a long moment, and turned away at last to latch the case. She had left a set of car keys on the dresser.

 

When Will emerged from the bathroom in his own rather sober looking suit, he said,

 

“I don’t know how you think we are going to fit in, even in these clothes, when we look like we’ve been beaten half to death.”

 

“There is a side exit; we’ve only to go as far as the parking garage, and foot traffic is currently minimal,” said Hannibal, “besides, I expect that I’m the one primarily being hunted. You’re probably presumed dead. Are you ready? It’s going to be a long drive – air travel seemed … imprudent.”

 

Will snorted.

 

“Imprudent. That’s one way to put it. Yeah, I’m ready.”

 

Not entirely sure of the last sentence he had uttered – his heart was beating too quickly and a mildly nauseating mixture of excitement and fear curled in his belly – Will nonetheless picked up one of the suitcases, not sure which was supposed to be his, and glanced at the case that Hannibal was currently retrieving from the bed with an unusual delicacy.

 

“Did Chiyoh think you were going to need her rifle to travel with me?” said Will, a little caustically. Hannibal smiled a little and said,

 

“No. Chiyoh has her gun.” Will did not try to indulge his curiosity for the moment, merely headed for the door; Hannibal picked up the car keys and the other suitcase and followed without bothering to wipe down everything they had touched.

 

The car that Chiyoh had left them was a Land Rover; the model was a few years old, and it was a rather nondescript gray, with plenty of room inside and meticulously maintained. Everything was quickly loaded inside, including Hannibal and Will, and once behind the tinted glass, Hannibal turned on the GPS and looked inquisitively at Will.

 

“Do you have the address?”

 

“No, but once we get close I’ll remember how to get there,” said Will, “it’s near Des Allemands.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The poem that Lady Murasaki sent is by Yosa Buson.


	3. Chapter 3

“You don’t seriously expect me to sit in a car for fifteen hours in a suit?” grumbled Will, as Hannibal drove the Land Rover south. He was fidgety and on edge, already wondering what the hell he’d been thinking to agree to this. It was madness. Dr. Lecter shot him a sidelong glance and Will amended that to a folie à deux; it wasn’t any more of a prudent decision for Hannibal than it was for Will, but it seemed that neither of them were placing a great deal of priority upon prudence. Hannibal never really had to begin with; part of his allure for Will was the curious freedom the man had always possessed; doing things just because he felt like it. Will, on the other hand, had a tendency to overthink and tangle himself into mental knots. This – whatever it was – was a deliberate step away from those thorny mental hedges, though he could not help wondering what darkness lay beyond them.

 

“You may feel free to remove it if you find it too confining,” said Hannibal, his amused tone flustering Will to no end.

 

“And get pulled over for public nudity? No thanks,” said the profiler, inwardly appalled that the idea of sitting in the passenger’s seat beside Hannibal completely nude aroused a stir of interest in his groin. Mercifully, Hannibal merely said,

 

“We’ll stop in Georgia and acquire some clothing that will undoubtedly be more to your taste.”

 

“Not to mention less noticeable,” said Will, wryly, “clearly you’ve never been to southern Louisiana. You may as well be wearing a clown suit as a three piece suit.”

 

One of the best moments of Will Graham’s life so far was the sight of the Chesapeake Ripper, direct descendant of Hannibal the Grim, walking into a WalMart in a suburb just south of Atlanta at four in the afternoon. A greeter who looked older than God offered them a cart as Will and Dr. Lecter walked into the bright fluorescent glare of the well-lit store, an endless eddy of people flowing around them, children bickering as they were corralled by a waddling young woman with curlers in her hair and a wasteland of cellulite lumped under bright pink yoga pants; sullen, pimply teens with shifty eyes and hoodies wandered past them. Looking as though he had just entered a portal to the ninth circle of Hell, Hannibal ignored the greeter while Will took the cart, trying very hard not to grin.

 

“Let’s make this as brief as possible,” said Hannibal, deliberately not looking up toward the security cameras, “it smells of … unwashed children and moldy carpets.”

 

They were in and out of the store in record time; Hannibal didn’t even bother to look at Will’s selections for the two of them. They changed afterwards in the men’s restroom, which was another exercise in self-control for Dr. Lecter, who was looking suspiciously murderous when he emerged from a stall wearing camouflage fatigues and a flannel shirt over a white sleeveless undershirt and a pair of work boots. Will, who was much more comfortable dressed that way, was startled to discover that he rather liked the way it looked on the refined murderer.

 

They had been taking turns driving, but Will took over as they neared their destination; it had been a long time since he’d been home, but he still remembered the area well enough. It was nearly midnight, and after passing through Metairie, the road was a long, unlit stretch through swamp and the occasional tiny town that seemed to consist of a bar, a bait shop and a gas station clustered around a single stop light with streets branching off into the night. Spanish moss in the moonlight draped from the trees like black lace, and they crossed many bridges over the canals that bisected the marshy land.

 

“Almost there now,” said Will, into the silence. Hannibal had been looking contemplatively out the window for some time now; he turned to look at Will and nodded a fraction. They passed through Des Allemands; a sign proclaimed it the “Catfishing Capital of the World!”, and then more darkness; Hannibal sensed more than saw the nearby water. After some time, the Land Rover turned off the paved road and onto gravel; the tires crunched for half a mile more and then the house came into view.

 

It was both older and much bigger than Hannibal had expected; he sat up with keen interest, his maroon gaze traveling intently over the roof line, the peeling white paint and the faded columns of the broad porch. Will opened the car door, closed his eyes for a moment and simply inhaled the scent of the bayou in winter; it was a damp cold that settled in the bones and sent a deep nostalgia knifing into his chest. Hannibal’s dark regard slid over his features with a brief look that was nearly greed and then he slid out of the vehicle to get their things. Will retrieved a key from under a paving stone near the drain pipe; the old boards of the front porch sighed beneath their weight.

 

Before he could open the door, Dr. Lecter caught his arm just above the elbow and spun him with an economical, brutal application of just enough force so that they were facing each other. Will, startled, attempted to pull away, feeling trapped between the door and the taller man. There was danger in Hannibal’s countenance, shadowed and fierce.

 

“Will,” he said, low pitched, his voice a rough caress, “if you wish us to be caught so quickly, why come at all?”

 

“I don’t know what you mean,” snapped Will, his heart pounding a fast tattoo against his ribcage like a trapped animal.

 

“You could have chosen a much less conspicuous place to buy clothing, yet you chose not to – brightly lit, over populated with media hungry creatures. If we were recognized, dear Jack will be upon your doorstep by tomorrow.”

 

Hannibal’s hand slid up Will’s arm from the vice grip he’d had it in to cup his jaw and look him in the face.

 

“What is it that you want, Will?” he asked, “you’d confine me to a prison cell, but you don’t wish to pull that particular trigger yourself? Is that what this is?”

 

Torn between lashing out and a deep seated need for the touch, Will met Hannibal’s shadowed gaze under the dark eaves of the porch and replied,

 

“I don’t know what _this_ is. That’s what I’m here to find out.”

 

“You are … curious what will happen?”

 

A tight smile that was almost a grimace crossed Will’s face.

 

“Something like that.”

 

“What do you imagine will happen?”

 

Will’s nose was filled with the scent of Hannibal, underneath the cheap new clothing; he was close enough to feel the warmth of his body. Suddenly he could imagine all sorts of things happening. Dr. Lecter, nearly invisible in the shadows, slid a thumb down over Will’s throat and stroked gently over the throb of his pulse. Will’s breath hitched, and then he exhaled shakily.

 

“I imagine we should go inside before we freeze out here,” he said, slipping out of Hannibal’s grasp and turning to open the front door. Hannibal let him go without protest, picking up his two cases to follow him into the darkness of the house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This isn't really supposed to be a cracky fic but I couldn't resist the idea of Hannibal in WalMart ;D


	4. Chapter 4

Will walked inside and flipped on the light; Hannibal raised a brow a fraction, looking askance at Will as he came in, not entirely having been expecting the place to have power connected if it had been empty for a while.

 

“You have to keep power out here,” said Will, answering his unspoken question, “with all the damp; it’d be rotting at the seams. My cousin keeps it up.”

 

The damp was still present in the chill air; the foyer was neither large nor small, paneled in white wood. The hardwood floors had seen better days and sagged a little alarmingly as they carried their luggage in.

 

“And what, I wonder, will we do if your cousin decides to drop in and do a little maintenance?” inquired Hannibal, sounding more amused than alarmed, but still a slight edge to his even tone.

 

“Improvise,” said Will, after a second’s thought, “but I doubt he will. He’s probably up in Baton Rouge holed up with a bottle of Evan Williams.”

 

Hannibal made a vague hum of acknowledgement as he looked around with interest. The house had probably been built at least a hundred years ago, to judge by the doors and hardware; the ceilings were high and the windows tall in the style of the Old South when air conditioning hadn’t been around to make life bearable, the shade created by the wraparound porch contributing to the preservation of coolness in humid summer. Newer additions were, by contrast, a little tacky; white kitchen appliances, newer cabinetry; a rather hideous wallpaper in the kitchen that was patterned with ivy. At least it had a gas stove, he mused, hoping that the propane tank he’d spotted outside earlier wasn’t empty.

 

“You are not eating my cousin,” said Will, putting down his suitcase.

 

“I shouldn’t want his liver, at any rate,” said Dr. Lecter, with a slight moue of distaste, “I imagine it’s in appalling condition.”

 

Will circulated around the rooms, making sure all of the blinds were closed, and turning the heat up a few degrees. He found himself hyper aware of Hannibal’s attention upon him; he couldn’t decide whether it was the natural survival instinct of any creature in a confined space with a dangerous predator or… something else. He paused at the entrance to the hallway, suitcase in hand, and said,

 

“The bedrooms are back here if you want to ... put your stuff up or whatever.” Inwardly rolling his eyes at his own smoothness, the profiler headed down the hallway without looking back to see if Hannibal was following him. The hallway light was apparently not working; after a moment of not hearing anything by the time he reached the bathroom door, he turned and almost ran face first into the lean, solid silhouette of Dr. Lecter.

 

“Oh – there you are,” he muttered.

 

“Where else would I be?” inquired Hannibal, amused.

 

“I can think of a few places,” said Will, wryly, “I can’t believe either one of us is here right now.”

 

Gesturing toward the dark doorway on the right, he added, awkwardly,

 

“There’s the bathroom. One of them anyway. Guest room’s down the hall.” With that, he dragged his suitcase off toward the master bedroom, leaving Hannibal to his own devices. Half an hour later, he emerged to find Hannibal in the kitchen, changed out of his newly acquired WalMart wardrobe and wearing a soft looking v-necked sweater and slacks – a far less flashy outfit than he normally went about in, but obviously of good quality. He was currently surveying the contents of the pantry with distinct disapproval. They’d grabbed a few items at WalMart (Will practically having to run to keep up with Hannibal, who was on a mission to get the hell out of there, as though tackiness was a communicable disease), but only a few staples like eggs, milk, bread.

 

“We can get some food tomorrow,” said Will, “I’ll catch us a fish. If you like.”

 

Hannibal looked at him sidelong, his severe expression thawing a bit.

 

“How can I refuse?” he said, “this _is_ the Catfish Capital of the World, after all.”

 

*

 

Meanwhile, at Muskrat Farm…

 

“Are you seriously trying to tell me that neither of you knew what was going on at the other end of the house?” ground out Jack Crawford. He was standing in one of the living rooms at Muskrat Farm; agents were currently swarming the property, after Margot had called police to report finding her deceased brother head first in the eel tank.

 

“It’s a big house,” said Margot, with her usual doe eyed calm. Alana stood beside her; even with her cane, her posture was protective toward the other woman.

 

“Are you accusing us of something, Jack?” inquired Alana, coldly, “I hardly think that we could have overpowered and killed seven guards and Mason’s … personal assistant.”

 

“I’m not accusing you of anything… yet,” said Jack, clearly frustrated. They had already found and identified both Hannibal Lecter and Will Graham’s fingerprints in the house – mostly Hannibal’s – inside the makeshift surgery where Cordell’s body had been found with his face surgically removed; the blood soaked handle of the hammer that had been used to brutally murder trained guards.

 

“All I want is to find Will,” he said, lowering his voice and looking weary, “he was with Hannibal in Florence, and Hannibal was trying to kill him. We know they were both here, but their bodies are not – Hannibal has him, and I don’t know whether he plans to finish what he started in Italy, but I _need_ to stop him.”

 

“There is nothing that Margot and I could tell you that would help you to find them,” said Alana, quite truthfully. Hannibal had given his word that he would save Will’s life, and he had kept it; there was no way of knowing what had come after.

 

“All right,” said Jack, at length, looking rather defeated, “please call me if you think of anything.” He headed swiftly out, ready to check the progress of the team and start fielding reporters for the media shitstorm that was about to ensue when the news outlets found out that Hannibal Lecter had killed again and was once more in the wind, this time kidnapping an FBI profiler in the process.


	5. Chapter 5

Will’s room was in the back of the house; marshland stretched for miles away from the bayou without touching anything in that direction except knobby cypress trees and black gum tupelos, festooned with Spanish moss, rising from brackish water that occasionally shivered and rippled with the movement of alligators and frogs. It wouldn’t do to wander far unless the wanderer in question knew the area extremely well. Such a wanderer was approaching the house now, from the west, on foot; unbeknownst to Will, there was a dilapidated shack some distance off, and its owner had been fishing from his old flat bottom boat close enough to the road to see the Land Rover’s tail lights disappearing down the long driveway that headed to the house.

 

Sonny Devereaux liked to fish at night; he’d been doing it since he was a kid, except for when he ended up doing a stint in the state pen up in St. Francisville for burglary, aggravated assault and battery. He wasn’t particularly sorry about what he’d done, but he sure was sorry to have been caught.  While he was hanging around the prison yard, hoping for a fight, his thoughts tended to vacillate between nostalgia about home and the couple he’d robbed – they’d woken up while he was rummaging through their things. A tight little grin split his lips now as he remembered the crunch of his ham sized fists breaking bone, the terrified screams of the girl. They deserved what they got – flaunting their fancy shit around while he barely had enough to score a gram of coke. He was a loner, avoided by the locals, a hulking mass of simmering anger that could flare up over anything; the only place he’d go was the local honky tonk where he’d drink until he was kicked out, then drive home in his battered truck, careless of anything or anyone else that might be on the road. He was out now for a single reason; he thought some other fancy little shits might be headed to the house that’d stood empty for a few years. If so, they’d be asleep; if they woke up while he was there, that would be too damn bad for them.

 

Will was not asleep. He was lying under a thick blanket against the cool air, wearing the soft t-shirt and boxers he’d found while rummaging through the big suitcase Chiyoh had brought (there had also, very thoughtfully, been a bottle of Bulleit bourbon included), and thinking about where he was, and who he was with. Despite everything, his anger wasn’t really directed toward Hannibal anymore; he knew what Hannibal was. In fact, he understood Hannibal uncomfortably well. It was a risk coming here with him, but a calculated one – any other options had felt wrong. Felt like he’d have been empty and waiting to die like a caged animal who remembers the hunt. Yet he was truly tired of joining Jack Crawford in his obsessive chase – his heart hadn’t truly been engaged in wanting Hannibal caught, and the conflict was tearing him apart. Now that he’d made this decision, he was strangely at peace with himself no matter what the outcome was. Perhaps this had always been the fateful outcome. What would happen when Jack came, as he inevitably would? Will truly didn’t know. But he was content to decide when the time came.

 

Abruptly, he was startled out of his thoughts by the squeak of wooden planks outside the window. Muffled by the thick windowpanes, it sounded like something large; there was a plethora of wildlife in the bayou, but not many animals large enough to test the aging wood. He sat up and listened; the noise was not repeated, but instinct sped his pulse. Wishing he had his gun briefly, Will slid out of bed as quietly as possible and padded barefoot down the hall; he considered waking Hannibal, but decided not to bother. It might be nothing – probably it _was_ nothing. He continued in the dark toward the kitchen, touching the wall occasionally to orient himself. Once there, he made a quick check of the drawers to find something to arm himself with, and discovered (unfortunately by cutting his finger on the blade) a large knife; he tested the edge with his thumb and found that it wasn’t as sharp as it should be, but it’d certainly do the job if a job was to be done. An odd sort of anticipation filled him as he gripped the handle of the knife and moved toward the foyer just in time to see the doorknob rattle.

 

Before Will had time to decide how to proceed, the door slammed open, the lock broken by a very large foot in a muddy boot, and crashed against the wooden paneling, knocking splinters everywhere. Silhouetted briefly in the doorway was a tall, broad shouldered figure with a sloping beer gut and a bald head; he carried with him a stench of fish and unwashed flesh; then Will was blinded by a flashlight aimed at his face. Instead of fear, the old, wild anger came roaring to the surface; the urge to shred and maim and bludgeon flooded his system with adrenaline, and heedless of the size of the intruder, Will snarled and threw himself headlong at Devereaux. Sonny, just as excited by the sudden prospect of violence, dropped the flashlight to grapple with the profiler; Will was thrown back by the sheer strength of him, but brutally stabbed the kitchen knife into Devereaux’ meaty forearm. Sonny howled with fury and surprise and threw a solid punch that would have knocked Will out cold if it had connected with his jaw. As it was, it glanced off his shoulder – the same shoulder with the still-healing gunshot wound. The sudden pain caught Will’s breath, the world swimming briefly in and out of focus. Sonny yanked the knife out of his forearm with a grunt, and started toward Will.

 

Then a shadow moved, deadly and graceful; Sonny screamed in shocked agony as a blade sliced cleanly across his heavy gut, creating a garish, bloody crevasse lined with yellow fat. The next second, his head was severed with such speed and accuracy that it didn’t fall instantly; then, the heavy body collapsed and the head rolled away. The hallway light was flipped on and the broken door pushed quickly shut. Will, grasping his wounded shoulder, stared blankly for a moment at the body, and then looked up at Hannibal, who was holding, of all things, what looked like an authentic Japanese sword. A thick stripe of blood was spattered violently across his bare chest. Will found that he couldn’t stop staring at it. Anger darkened Dr. Lecter’s sharply defined Nordic features and danger lay coiled beneath every tensed muscle. His maroon gaze swept over Will, and his expression began to clear.

 

“Are you all right, Will?” he said, paying no attention to the odoriferous corpse on the floor. Will, his pulse still racing from the adrenaline, nodded.

 

“Son of a bitch hit me in the shoulder - right where Chiyoh shot me,” he said, shooting a feral glare at the dead man.

 

“I saw,” said Dr. Lecter, “we’d better have a look at it. The wound has reopened.”

 

He turned and headed toward the kitchen, still carrying the sword, which he proceeded to clean meticulously with a kitchen towel from under the sink.

 

“Take off your shirt,” said Hannibal, “I’ll be back in a moment.” He left Will alone in the kitchen for just long enough to return the sword of Murasaki’s illustrious ancestor (with a respectful word of thanks) and collect the medical kit from his suitcase.


	6. Chapter 6

Hannibal returned to the kitchen to find Will shivering slightly and clad only in his boxers; the wound in his shoulder trickled a slow stream of warm blood down his bare, finely chiseled torso, having blossomed red through the white dressing. Dr. Lecter tilted his chin a fraction in brief appreciation before putting down his medical kit on the counter. Will, not oblivious, colored slightly and fidgeted despite his resolution not to; it was difficult not to feel like Hannibal’s gaze carried physical weight; meeting his eyes was like being laid completely bare.

 

“Why do you have a samurai sword?” asked Will abruptly, the pressure of remaining silent under Dr. Lecter’s regard becoming too much for him.

 

“My aunt, Lady Murasaki, sent guardianship of it to me through Chiyoh,” replied Hannibal, opening the kit with fastidious neatness and drawing on a pair of blue surgical rubber gloves with a snap. Will swallowed involuntarily at the sudden heat tightening his groin, he was inwardly aghast as he considered the possibility of Dr. Lecter triggering some sort of latent medical kink. Just what he needed. Up until recently, he had considered himself straight as well, though he hadn't given it a great deal of actual thought - intimacy had always been difficult for him. Apparently there was room for all sorts of negotiations within the construct of his sense of self.

 

“Guardianship?” he asked, striving for a normal tone. He watched as Hannibal’s gloved, surgeon’s fingers peeled away the soiled dressing and discarded it; Dr. Lecter replied as he began to clean the wound,

 

“The sword belonged to her ancestor, a great general; Date Masumune. Once a year, she is honored to clean his armor and anoint it with oil of cloves.” He glanced up from his work at Will’s face; the younger man wore an expression of interest, layered like wet on wet with twinges of pain and heat flares of arousal.

 

“I will, of course, maintain his swords with the same care,” he murmured, looking back down at his work. The wound was small enough not to have really needed stitches, and the bullet had not exited; he’d used Will’s own knife to carve it from the wound. With swift, economical motions, he repacked it with sterilized gauze and applied a new dressing.

 

“Your aunt – Lady Murasaki,” said Will, obediently still under Hannibal’s expert ministrations, “where is she now?”

 

“Hiroshima,” Hannibal said, “she left Paris for home when I was a young man.”

 

It occurred to Will that there was a great deal that he did not know about Hannibal Lecter. While any object could become a weapon in his hands, he was obviously expert with the sword; Will wouldn’t have imagined that. A scalpel seemed more fitting.

 

“Try not to exert that,” said Hannibal, “I’ll change the dressing again tomorrow.” Will, who could certainly have done it himself, for once did not assert his independence, finding that he disconcertingly preferred for Hannibal to do it.

 

“Alright,” he said, wryly. Hannibal, who surely knew that Will was capable of changing his own dressing, did not remove the surgical gloves immediately; instead, he brushed a long, deliberate line across Will's collarbone with his thumb, causing a visible tremor to quiver through the profiler.

 

“Not very professional, doctor,” breathed Will.

 

“You’re not my patient, Will,” said Hannibal, rough and low pitched; stroking his gloved fingers almost idly down over Will’s chest to ghost over his peaky nipple, he raised an eyebrow and added,

 

“Unless you’d like to be?”

 

A strained chuff of amusement passed Will’s lips.

 

“Maybe I would,” he acknowledged; no point denying it with his very obvious erection tenting his boxers. Hannibal stripped off the surgical gloves and shot them into the trashcan; his hands were warm when he settled them over Will’s sides just over his hipbones, prowling up against him and pinning his back against the counter firmly. The blood spattered roughness of hair across his broad chest brushed Will’s smooth torso, intensely masculine; Will uttered a low pitched moan, suddenly breathless as his hands came up to Hannibal’s shoulders, grasping solid muscle. Hannibal’s dark eyes glinted redly as he paused, searching Will’s face for an intense moment; then he closed the gap between them and lowered his head to firmly meet Will’s slightly parted lips with his own. Will reeled inwardly at the solid heat of the man pressed against him; his hands clutched Dr. Lecter’s shoulders with bruising need and he surged forward to meet the kiss with an eagerness that shocked and thrilled him in equal measures. Hannibal’s mouth was hot, dangerous, addictive; his tongue lapped gently, sensually at Will’s, drawing a deep moan from the younger man. Then, he drew back a fraction and nuzzled into the curls behind Will’s ear, inhaling his scent like a wolf and holding it in his lungs as he released him and stepped back, pausing to brush a warm kiss against the side of his neck.

 

Will exhaled shakily; his legs were shaky and his hormones were a mess.

 

“I think I need a drink,” he said, and headed unsteadily off down the hallway to get his bourbon. Hannibal watched him retreat with a sort of hunger in his face that would have sent most people running for cover. Then his mind turned toward the more practical issue of the bloodbath in the front foyer. Deciding that alligators would be critical to his solution, he elected to wait for Will and have a fortifying drink first; the intruder really did smell dreadful.

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

When Will woke up the next day, the front foyer was so clean that he almost felt like he’d hallucinated the entire episode; Hannibal had shared a bourbon with him and then “suggested” that he lie down and rest his shoulder. He wondered briefly at the extent of the older man’s experience in cleaning up crime scenes, as even the blood on the whitewashed walls was only faintly visible if you squinted and knew where to look. He assumed the body had been fed to the alligators, though whether it had gone into the water intact or not, he really didn’t know (or probably want to know).

 

He found Hannibal (where else) in the kitchen; he was sitting at the counter, drinking coffee and perusing a tablet. The sun slanted through the half open blinds, limning the sharp, defined angles of his cheekbone and jawline and illuminating the healing scabs across his face. He looked up at Will, his eyes glinting redly in the watery winter sunlight. He was dressed in what Will supposed he considered casual clothing; slacks, button down white shirt with the sleeves rolled back to the elbows.

 

“Good morning, Will,” he said, courteous as ever.

 

“Morning,” said Will, looking around for the source of the coffee, “lobby looks great… what did you do with the body?”

 

“Dismembered it with the axe by the woodpile and deposited it in the swamp,” replied Hannibal, dismissively, “would you like coffee? It’s not particularly good, but it will serve for the moment.”

 

“Yeah. Actually, that sounds good.”

 

Hannibal put the tablet down and went to the stove, where he’d made coffee, campfire style; it was still hot, and he poured Will a cupful into a chipped mug from the cabinet, careful not to get any grounds in it. Sliding it toward him, Dr. Lecter said,

 

“There’s milk in the refrigerator if you’d like.”

 

“I’ll take it black,” said Will, picking up the mug in both hands, soothed by the warmth of it. Hannibal, graceful as a cat, returned to his reading; Will found that his attention was drawn repeatedly to Dr. Lecter’s mouth, and flushed involuntarily at the memory of its sinful heat pressed against his own the night before. He wandered over to the back door, coffee in hand, his heart beating just a little too fast, and looked out over the chilly marshland behind the house, all sorts of inappropriate images drifting through his mind – he kept returning to Dr. Lecter’s surgeon’s hands, touching him through thin latex gloves, and swallowed hard. He didn’t even notice when Hannibal put his tablet down and crossed the floor behind him, startling visibly when his former psychiatrist ran a deft fingertip up the side of his neck, tucking a stray curl behind his ear. He nearly dropped his coffee, and they both heard his sharp inhalation.

 

“Your thoughts are loud today,” remarked Hannibal, close enough that Will could feel his warm breath on the side of his neck, “are you in discomfort?”

 

“In what way, Doctor?” inquired Will, rather wryly.

 

Hannibal plucked the coffee cup out of Will’s hand and put it on the nearby counter.

 

“You’ve sustained some injuries,” said Dr. Lecter, lifting a brow a fraction, “how does your jaw feel? I fear Cordell was quite determined to remove your face so that Mason might have the pleasure of wearing it instead of you.”

 

“He was going to eat you with it,” said Will, bitterly amused and simultaneously hyper aware of Hannibal’s close proximity. He turned to face Dr. Lecter, who took a half step back that wasn’t quite far enough to be completely polite.

 

“If anyone were going to eat me with your face,” said Hannibal, “I’d certainly prefer that it was the original owner.”

 

He lifted a hand to Will’s jaw, tilting it upward a bit to examine the neat line of stitches he’d sewn there, where the scalpel had begun its devastating work.

 

“How does it look?” asked Will, a little breathlessly.

 

“It seems to be healing nicely,” replied Hannibal, in a clinical tone that went straight to Will’s groin, “I will remove them in a day or so, if all is well.” He tilted his chin slightly, eyes hooding a bit as he took in Will’s parted lips and the faint flush of his cheeks.

 

“Perhaps I should give you a proper examination,” he all but purred, in his silky-rough Lithuanian accent, “after all, you’ve been through a lot in the past week physically. We ought to make sure everything is in order. Would you like that, Will?”

 

Will’s mouth went suddenly dry; he swallowed with a click. Hannibal’s hand was still on the side of his neck and it felt as hot as a brand.

 

“Do you think it’s necessary?” he said, finding his voice at last.

 

“I think that it would be a wise precaution,” replied Dr. Lecter, finally lowering his hand and looking a little amused before adding, “after all, you’ve been thrown off a train, shot, nearly had your face peeled off…”

 

“Not to mention almost having my brain eaten,” Will pointed out dryly.

 

“My medical supplies are in the guest room,” said Dr. Lecter, crisply, “please go and strip to your boxers and wait for me there.” Will almost protested, not having at all expected this development (or not precisely anyway), but found that his feet were moving in the prescribed direction before he could decide to object. He found the guest room immaculately tidy; it smelled faintly of Hannibal – a clean, heady mixture of leather, cedarwood, vetiver and warm amber. As nervous as he was aroused, he pulled the t-shirt he was wearing off over his head and pushed his pants down over his hips, folding everything a little untidily on top of the dresser. Catching sight of himself in the mirror, he wondered if this really was just a necessity – after all, he was a mass of cuts and bruises, and he was sore all over. Hannibal _was_ a qualified medical doctor. He shivered, waiting for what felt like longer than the actual couple of minutes it took for Hannibal to scrub his hands under the kitchen tap.

 

When Hannibal entered the room, the brief hunger in his gaze as it swept over Will’s pale, chiseled torso was enough to dispel the idea that his interest was purely for medical reasons. However, he was quite professional as he opened his medical bag and removed an array of things on the nightstand, most of which Will recognized from his previous physicals for the FBI. Dr. Lecter, his sleeves rolled back, slid on a pair of blue surgical gloves, and Will tensed a fraction, trying not to look too closely at those deft hands and failing completely.

 

“I’m afraid that I neglected to bring a proper lab coat,” commented Hannibal, not unamused, “I hope that you aren’t too disappointed.” Will, his cheeks turning more scarlet by the second, shook his head mutely as Dr. Lecter retrieved a stethoscope from his bag.

 

“What are you doing that for?” gasped Will, as the cold metal touched his chest and Hannibal listened carefully to his heart.

 

“Blunt force trauma to the chest or shoulder can cause heart irregularities,” murmured Dr. Lecter, shifting the chilly resonator disk across the planes of his chest, then circling around him to place it against his back, still intent upon his task. The close proximity was having a distinct effect on Will, which was difficult for Hannibal not to notice under the circumstances.

 

“Your heart rate is accelerating, Will,” he observed, “are you feeling stress?”

 

“Stress? Not exactly,” said Will, sounding a bit strained. Hannibal listened a moment longer, purely for his own pleasure, and then put the instrument away.

 

“Perhaps I can help,” he said.

 

“How?”

 

“As your doctor, Mr. Graham, you may trust my treatment; a trifle unorthodox perhaps, but effective.”

 

“I can’t imagine a more unorthodox doctor-patient relationship than ours,” said Will, cynically, “in fact, I find it difficult to believe that one exists.”

 

“Quite possibly not,” said Hannibal, amusement coloring his tone before it returned to a cool professionality that Will’s physical response to was quite intriguing.

 

“You like it when you can imagine that what I’m going to do and say to you is purely professional,” observed Hannibal, “a measured distance that allows you space from yourself and desires that you are uncomfortable with.”

 

“Astute as always,” conceded Will, “but I didn’t come here to be psychoanalyzed.”

 

“No, you came to be treated by a professional,” replied Hannibal, “so do as I say without complaint. Remove your boxers.”

 

Will paused a moment, and then did as he was told, standing before Dr. Lecter completely nude, his cock half hard, framed by pale, muscular thighs. His body was a map of scars and bruises; Hannibal’s deep claret gaze lingered across his own handiwork, the long, thick scar across his abdomen.

 

“Now turn around and place your hands on the bed and spread your legs,” Dr. Lecter instructed, his European accented speech utterly professional. Will, his treacherous cock thickening, turned the lean, pale expanse of his back toward the doctor, deliberately placing his hands flat against the counterpane, firm backside almost obscenely turned up.

 

“Good,” said Hannibal, “try to relax and remain still.” He retrieved a bottle of sterile lubricant from the bag and applied it liberally to the gloved fingers of his right hand. Will’s shoulders were tensed, his head lowered. Dr. Lecter gently swiped his surgeon’s fingers between the younger man’s buttocks, eliciting a gasp from Will; he applied moderate pressure, massaging him open, slowly and with seemingly endless patience until Will began to relax enough for Hannibal to slide one gloved finger slowly into his tight hole, moving with expert precision until Will involuntarily moaned when he brushed over his prostate. Will was panting as Dr. Lecter slid two lubricated fingers in and out of him firmly and smoothly, massaging the gland with expert precision. He was fully hard now and pushing his hips back against the penetration that suddenly didn’t feel like enough; pleasure was building within his loins with deep pressure. He moaned and panted and groaned Hannibal’s name, forgetting entirely to call him by his professional title.

 

“Will,” breathed Hannibal. The simple sound of his name spoken in that low rasp was enough to push Will over the edge; he came hard, spurting gouts of thick semen across the bedspread, the muscles of his back and thighs quivering.

 

Hannibal slid his fingers free gently, removing the latex gloves and dropping them into the waste basket and began putting away his medical supplies while Will tried to catch his breath. Finally, the younger man stood and turned to face him, beautifully flushed.

 

“I hope that you’ve found the treatment beneficial,” said Dr. Lecter, admiring the view and looking a little smug. The fact that his own trousers had become entirely too constricting was of little consequence, at least for the moment.

 

“Your qualifications are well earned,” said Will, wryly, “sorry about the bed spread though.”

 

“It can be laundered,” said Hannibal, dismissively, before adding with a half-smile, “I’ll find something to prepare for lunch. We can’t neglect your proper nutrition after all.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took a while to update this time! My fiance was in the hospital for a couple of days. I'm back now :)


	8. Chapter 8

“Before you do that,” said Will, hesitating for a second, before adding, “will you show me the sword that you used last night?”

 

Hannibal gave him a measuring look, and then inclined his head in agreement.

 

“Of course,” he said. He turned and crossed the room toward the case on the dresser, and Will followed after him, still nude. He was fascinated by the economical grace of Dr. Lecter’s movements; he always had been. Hannibal was striking in his preternatural stillness, even moreso when it was broken by calculated movement – the quintessential predator, controlled and precise, with a feral instinct beneath the civilized veneer. Will felt the fine hairs prickle on the back of his neck, a purely animal response, as they stood close together. Hannibal opened the case with a reverence that Will had rarely seen in him; resting within, swathed in crimson silk, there were actually two scabbarded swords – the longer katana and the shorter stabbing sword. They were beautifully maintained, and had survived since the Edo period. It is impossible to guess how much blood they have shed. Will watched silently as Hannibal moved the silk neatly aside and slid the wakizashi a few inches out of the scabbard so that the light pooled across the lethally keen edge.

 

“The two swords, when worn together, were called _daishō_  in feudal Japan,” explained Dr. Lecter, “every samurai was required to wear them when on duty.” He looked sidelong at Will with a faint smile and added,

 

“It means, quite literally, large - small.” Will raised an eyebrow a bit.

 

“Interesting,” he said, “I assume, of course, that you can use them both proficiently.”

 

“My aunt taught me when I was young,” said Hannibal, lowering his head in assent.

 

“And Chiyoh?”

 

“Chiyoh, yes – she was Lady Murasaki’s handmaid.” Hannibal slid the sword back into its scabbard; the steel sang for an instant then fell silent, muted by the sheath.

 

He closed the case and turned to face Will, who did not step backward when Dr. Lecter’s hand slid over the curve of his hip, stroking a thumb over the smooth, pale skin.

 

“Your aunt sounds like someone I’d like to meet,” said Will, his breath hitching slightly as his blue-green eyes met Hannibal’s darker, maroon gaze. In this light, Dr. Lecter’s eyes looked like claret in crystal.

 

“Perhaps one day you will,” said Hannibal, his mouth close enough to Will’s that the younger man could feel his warm breath on his lips, “once you’ve decided what _this_ is.”

 

A small, involuntary moan passed Will’s parted lips and was swallowed by Hannibal as he closed the miniscule distance between them, his dangerous mouth hot against Will’s in an intimacy so intense it was nearly painful. Will’s hands tightly grasped Hannibal’s upper arms through the crisp white cloth of his shirt, his tongue tasting Dr. Lecter’s in leisurely, sensual strokes, slick and humid. Hannibal pulled back slightly to slide his mouth down over Will’s jaw, briefly brushing over his stitches, and Will lifted his chin to allow better access with the mindless animal instinct of a submissive mate. The flesh of his arms was rigid with gooseflesh as he felt Hannibal’s sharp canines settle against his bared throat, scraping across the skin in a slow drag, just hard enough to hurt a little, chasing the pain with a lick of his hot tongue. The thought of what that mouth was capable of shouldn’t have been as arousing as it was, but Will found that the awareness of it served only to intensify the thrill of pleasure coursing through his body. It was almost too much; he was hard again, leaking against Hannibal’s clothed hip.

 

Dr. Lecter’s hands ran roughly up over Will’s sides, then trailed light scratches down to the small of his back, exploring the smooth musculature before releasing him; he placed a last, lingering kiss over the throbbing pulse of his neck and then stepped back to look Will in the face. The younger man was flushed, pupils blown wide, trembling slightly. _Beautiful_. Hannibal found that his own respiration had taken on an unexpectedly ragged note, and with an effort of will, deliberately composed himself. It wasn’t as easy as he had expected. Exhaling a long breath, he finally said, not without a note of wry amusement,

 

“You had better get dressed, or breakfast will consist of something entirely different than planned.”

 

*

 

QUANTICO, VA

 

Jack, who had been more or less hiding in his office since the press had been camped out on his doorstep about the kidnapped FBI profiler and the vanished cannibal who had committed said kidnapping, popped three aspirin, thought for a second, and then added a fourth. There hadn’t been a trace of Will Graham or Dr. Lecter, which was not entirely surprising, given Hannibal’s ability to disappear. He wondered whether Will was even alive, and a flicker of guilt churned in his stomach. He looked up at a knock on his door and waved the visitor in; it was one of the interns he’d had working on the tip line, which had been overflowing with crank calls and false sightings. The interns had been in and out of his office like over enthusiastic jackrabbits every time they had something that sounded promising, and it was beginning to wear on his nerves … but he refused to overlook even the smallest possibility of capturing the monster who had tried him the most mightily and saving Will’s life.

 

“Make it good,” snapped Jack. The young man in front of him tried not to look intimidated and failed completely, but it didn’t reduce his excitement level.

 

“Sir, the call we got from the lady down in Georgia who said she saw them at WalMart,” he said, all in a rush.

 

“I remember,” said Jack, dryly, “and if you had ever met Hannibal Lecter, you’d know he’d rather set himself on fire than walk into a damned WalMart.”

 

“The store sent the tape we asked for – I think it might really be them! Er… sir.”

 

“You think, or you’re sure?”

 

“They’re very identifiable, sir,” said the intern, “I think you might want to take a look.”

 

Jack started to get up, and paused.

 

“Were they together?”

 

“Yes, sir.”

 

“Did Agent Graham seem like he was in distress or under coercion?”

 

“No, sir…” the intern paused, before adding, “he looked pretty happy, actually.”


	9. Chapter 9

Will rejoined Hannibal in the kitchen not long afterwards, this time fully dressed; Chiyoh had brought some clothes that agreed with him and fit quite well. He was wearing jeans and a faded gray chambray shirt with the collar unfastened to show a bit of the white undershirt beneath. He’d tamed his hair and hidden it beneath a weathered looking baseball cap. Hannibal lifted a brow a fraction and inquired,

 

“Going out?”

 

“Thought I’d get us some supplies,” replied Will, his blue-green eyes shaded beneath the brim of his hat. The corners of his mouth turned up a bit, and he added,

 

“I’m hungry.”

 

“It would be my pleasure to accommodate your appetite,” said Dr. Lecter, pleased by the faint color that rose in Will’s cheeks in response. He was only a little surprised at how readily Will had responded to the physical change in their relationship; they had always stood just a little too close together, been far more intimate than purely platonic friends. It was hardly an insurmountable task to bridge that last tenuous physical gap between them. However, as pleasurable as unraveling Will completely promised to be, it wasn’t merely his body that Dr. Lecter was interested in; it was promising that Will had chosen to be here, but their current situation was finite, as the location he had selected was one that would be interrupted at some point in the near future, whether by Jack Crawford and the FBI, or by a relative unsuspectingly arriving to do some maintenance on the place.

 

“Perhaps I ought to go instead,” suggested Hannibal, thoughtfully, “do you suppose you might be recognized by someone you know here? It’s a small town.”

 

“I doubt it,” said Will, with a shrug, “I haven’t been here in over ten years. Anyway, I’ll be a lot less conspicuous than you.”

 

“I am capable of altering my appearance to blend with the locale,” said Hannibal, a regal tilt to his chin saying the exact opposite. Will huffed a noise of exasperated amusement.

 

“I don’t care how many Wal-Mart work boots and wifebeaters you wear,” said Will, “you still look like a half breed cross between European nobility and a Viking. Also, you do _not_ sound like you’re from around here.”

 

“Wife beaters?” inquired Hannibal, looking rather mystified.

 

“Never mind,” said Will, with a slight grin, “I’ll be back in about an hour.”

 

Without waiting for further commentary from Dr. Lecter, Will picked up the Land Rover keys from the counter and headed out the front door. Hannibal gave the door a long, considering look; it would certainly be easy enough for Will to phone Jack the minute he reached town. Dr. Lecter did not indulge in worry, however. He decided to spend the time preparing the meat he’d reserved from Sonny Devereaux before sending the rest of him into the swamp for the dining pleasure of the waiting alligators. It would go nicely with scrambled eggs for brunch.

 

*

 

Will found that the town hadn’t changed much since he’d been gone; it looked a little older and grubbier, and there was a new Bojangles adjacent to the gas station, but that was pretty much it. He found Frank’s Supermarket without any trouble, parked the Land Rover and went inside, the brim of his cap shading most of his face. He deliberately hadn’t shaved, and nobody gave him a second glance as he grabbed a shopping cart and ambled around the store, adding things to it; thinking of Hannibal’s reaction with a minor amount of glee, he dropped a bag of Gator jerky in. He felt curiously apart from himself; the usual gut churning anxiety seemed distant, unimportant. He wasn’t entirely sure of what he wanted from Hannibal; he suspected though, and that was edging uncomfortably close to the darkness within himself, so he focused on the one thing that he _was_ sure of, even though it seemed dangerous. He wanted more of those surgeon’s hands on him, more of that sinful mouth. Thinking of it made his cock twitch lazily within its confines of tight denim and the fine hairs prickle on his forearms. He was rather distracted as he finished his shopping.

 

The cashier ringing up his purchases was an attractive woman, a little younger than he was, with a sweetly pretty face beneath thick bangs, her tawny hair in a ponytail. She smiled at him, tilting her head and said,

 

“You look familiar… do I know you?”

 

“No,” said Will, “I’m just in town to do some fishing.”

 

“Guess that’s what most people come for,” she said, scanning a few items and then looking back up at him through her lashes, “what do you do when you’re not fishing?”

 

_Make out with serial killers? Get face-harvested by psycho billionaires?_ Will sorted the possible honest answers with a wry half smile before finally replying,

 

“Fix boat motors, mostly.”

 

“There’s a bar down the street,” she said, “the décor’s not much, but the beer is cold and they have a great catfish fry … if you get tired of fishing.”

 

“I won’t be in town long,” said Will.

 

“What’s your name?”

 

After a brief pause, Will said,

 

“Garrett.”

 

“I’m Molly,” said the cashier, holding out a hand, “Molly Foster.”

 

“Pleasure,” said Will, who was quite uncomfortable at the personal turn the transaction had taken. So much for flying under the radar. He gave her outstretched hand a polite shake before paying cash (with a silent thanks to Chiyoh, even if she had recently thrown him off a train), gathering his things and departing in a hurry. He’d only looked at his receipt once he was sitting in the Land Rover; she had written a phone number on it (presumably her own), with a little smiley face. Stuffing it absently into his pocket, Will headed out of the lot and back toward the house.

 

Hannibal came out to help him bring the groceries inside and put everything away; his expression when he came across the gator jerky was every bit as good as Will knew it would be. Nobody else would have even noticed, but Will was familiar enough by now with Hannibal’s micro expressions to recognize the slightly raised brows combined with an infinitesimal hooding of his eyes and lips parted just enough to catch a glimpse of a sharp canine.

 

“Never tried gator jerky?” he inquired, with an innocent look. Without deigning to respond to such a question, Dr. Lecter said instead,

 

“I’ll prepare something to eat.” He added, with a look of dry amusement,

 

“It will not contain alligator.”

 

Will sat down at the counter and removed his baseball cap, dropping it onto the surface beside him, and ran a hand backward through his hair. He spotted Hannibal’s tablet nearby and slid it toward himself to check the news while Dr. Lecter took things out of the refrigerator and dug around in the cabinets looking for anything resembling a decent pan.

 

“Do you ever use this thing for anything but Tattlecrime?” inquired Will, curiously, as the website came up promptly.

 

“Perhaps I’m old fashioned,” said Hannibal, placing a cast iron skillet on the stove, “but I prefer my books properly bound, with paper and ink. And as distasteful as I find Ms. Lounds personally, she has an undeniable talent for ferreting out a story. Perhaps it’s just as well that you didn’t truly kill her.”

 

Will winced a little at the reminder of his betrayal, which had no doubt been deliberate. Despite Dr. Lecter’s fondness for Will, it wouldn’t do to forget what he was. It didn’t stop Will from appreciating the long, lean lines of the predator’s form though, as he moved about the kitchen with a sort of matchless innate grace. While Will perused the news (the Wal-Mart security tape hadn’t been leaked yet, though it soon would be), a variety of mouthwatering aromas rose from the stove; after a while, Hannibal plated and placed a plate in front of Will. Perfect scrambled eggs with chives, a little Parmesan, and little pieces of … bacon? Pancetta?

 

“I didn’t buy any bacon,” said Will, half to himself, then paused with a forkful halfway to his mouth as realization struck.

 

“ _Oh_.”

 

Hannibal merely watched him process this for a long moment; it was interesting to watch the play of emotions flit across the profiler’s face. Will’s stomach growled; he found that he was not so horrified, really. After all, he had quite willingly consumed Randall Tier’s flesh when Hannibal had made _lomo saltado_ , even if it was under false pretenses. And there was something primal about consuming one’s enemy in the literal sense; it appealed to him on a purely instinctive level. He met Hannibal’s claret colored eyes as he sat across the counter from him with a plate of his own. Then, he deliberately slid the forkful of food into his mouth with visible pleasure. Dr. Lecter’s gaze lingered upon his face with a terrible sort of devotion for a moment; his eyes were dark and hooded, pupils swallowing the deep maroon irises briefly like an eclipse.


	10. Chapter 10

Will pushed his chair away from the table, both sated and energized by the meal they had shared. Having knowingly consumed the flesh of their shared foe, no façades this time, no elaborate pretense – _this_ , the beginning of a _true_ becoming - left his nerve endings singing; it was almost disconcerting, but wasn’t this what he’d come here to learn? He couldn’t find a space within himself for regret. Hannibal smiled at him then, all sharp canines and faintly maroon, hooded eyes that glinted with pride and pleasure. He looked like the very devil, severe, perfect bone structure haloed with the afternoon sun, and Will was weak with the knowledge that Lucifer was truly the tempter that his Southern biblical upbringing had warned against.

 

Getting up from the table, Will found that he had no particular desire to leave their temporary haven again for the moment, despite his promise of fresh fish from the bayou. Instead, he said,

 

“Want a drink?”

 

“I would like that,” replied Hannibal, “though I’d prefer something besides bourbon. You’ll find a bottle of scotch in my suitcase; Chiyoh kindly provided it along with the luggage.” He tilted his chin a little as he stood, regarding Will for a long, assessing moment.

 

“Shall I put away your coat?” he said. Will shrugged a little, and said wryly,

 

“Sure. I wasn’t planning to go anywhere else.” He headed off down the hallway to the back of the small house and Hannibal picked up his jacket from where he’d casually slung it over the back of the chair. When he did so, the receipt from the grocery store fell out of the pocket; Dr. Lecter caught it neatly in mid-air and moved to throw it into the nearby trash can, pausing when something caught his eye. One eyebrow lifting unconsciously, he smoothed the piece of paper, his dark gaze pausing upon the cheerfully scrawled smiley face and the telephone number above. He blinked once, like a camera clicking. Then, he crumpled the receipt in one hand and threw it away. As he hung up Will’s jacket in the coat closet, he found himself caught off guard by the flare of possessive fury that washed over him; when Will reappeared with the bottle of Oban, he had to restrain himself from seizing the younger man by the curls at the nape of his neck to bare his throat and bite the pale skin until blood flowed and purple bruises formed, leaving no doubt whatsoever as to whom Will belonged to. Although he was already forming much more appropriate plans for the owner of that particular telephone number, he nonetheless clenched his jaw against the urge.

 

Will carried the scotch into the living room; Hannibal paused to find the two most passable glasses in the cabinet, rinsed them under the tap and then brought them in, sitting close enough to Will on the old sofa that their thighs almost – but not quite – touched. Will’s ocean colored gaze drifted sidelong toward Hannibal, studying him quietly from beneath his lashes for a moment before he uncorked the scotch and poured each of them a generous measure.

 

“What shall we drink to?” inquired Dr. Lecter, with genuine curiosity. Will, as ever, was not entirely transparent to him, and he was intrigued. How very different he was than the rest of the predictable herd of humanity, even the brighter specimens among them. As he had once remarked, Will alone had the capacity to deceive him; he would prefer nothing less.

 

Will handed Hannibal a glass, then picked up his own, tipping it toward Dr. Lecter slightly with a wry smile that was nonetheless quite sincere.

 

“To whatever _this_ is?”

 

“Have you decided, then, what this is?”

 

“I’m beginning to.”

 

“Then indeed, let us drink to _this_ ,” said Hannibal, the corners of his sensual mouth lifting in a smile before he gently clinked his own glass against Will’s. He watched the younger man’s throat undulate as he swallowed a mouthful of the excellent scotch, his own radiating warmth through his chest as he drank.

 

“I’ve been thinking,” said Will, cradling his glass in his lightly calloused palm. Hannibal raised a brow in mock concern, and Will snickered a little, involuntarily, his nerves on edge.

 

“You won’t hate it,” he added.

 

“I must admit, I am intrigued. Please continue,” replied Hannibal, taking a sip of scotch and savoring the unique scent of smoke and heather that filled his senses from the tiny, ancient Scottish distillery.

 

“Well, if we’re going to leave the country, it will be easier for them to spot us if we’re together.” Hannibal blinked.

 

“Have you decided that we’ll be leaving the country, Will?”

 

“It seems like the logical thing to do, doesn’t it?” Dr. Lecter turned and lifted his free hand to cup Will’s jaw, his palm warm against the still healing skin, and held Will’s gaze. The profiler did not look away, though he trembled a fraction.

 

“I’ve waited a long time to hear you say this, Will,” murmured Hannibal, “I’d have waited for years if I must.”

 

“I guess I’ve been waiting too,” said Will, exhaling a long breath and finally looking away, “I just didn’t realize it.” When he looked up again, his brow was furrowed.

 

“But I don’t want them to catch us.”

 

“They won’t,” said Hannibal, with a certainty that Will wanted to latch onto, but found it difficult to let go of his misgivings. Hannibal put his glass down on the table, then gently took Will’s away as well, before leaning in to kiss him deeply, reverently. Will smelled of anxiety and arousal, a heady mixture that reminded Dr. Lecter of asphodel honey, light, intensely sweet and slightly acidic. His mouth tasted of smoky scotch as Hannibal breathed him in, each slick, hot stroke of tongues making their shared breaths come shorter and steeper. When Dr. Lecter drew back at last, there was such a look of besotted lust in his dark eyes that it gave Will an electric frisson up his spine, lingering like heat lightning at the base of his skull.

 

“You said that it would be easier for them to spot us if we were together,” said Hannibal, presently, “it wouldn’t be, if they only thought that one of us was alive.”

 

“You’re not cutting my ear off,” said Will, a grim and mildly accusatory note touching his voice. His shoulders tensed visibly at the memory of Abigail.

 

“That’s not what I had in mind,” said Hannibal, calmly, “I’ll need some medical supplies though.” Will’s eyes widened a fraction, and the intoxicating scent of both his fear and arousal flared.

 

“Nothing that you will object to, I believe,” said Dr. Lecter, “but I will, of course, proceed only with your explicit consent.”

 

“Of course,” said Will, his tone heavy with irony, “because you’ve only ever done anything to me with my full consent.”

 

“Will, if we cannot move beyond the past, there is no purpose in going anywhere,” said Hannibal, a crimson glint flashing in his unusual colored irises, “I don’t expect you to forget it, as I will not forget … but unless your ultimate plan is to await the arrival of Jack and the FBI, we must trust each other, at least to some extent.”

 

“You’re right,” said Will, exhaling a lengthy sigh. His shoulders relaxed a fraction and he picked up his scotch, swallowing a fortifying mouthful. The blossoming heat spreading through his torso settled him further. He shifted a bit, trying to ease the tension in his jeans; despite the brief unpleasant note about Abigail, his cock was still half hard from having Hannibal’s mouth on his. He bit his lip unconsciously, and looked sidelong to discover that Hannibal was watching him intently.

 

“Is there something you’d like, Will?” inquired Dr. Lecter, softly.

 

“I don’t know,” murmured Will, squirming slightly and trying not to as Hannibal’s warm, capable hand settled over his thigh.

 

“Are you quite sure that you don’t know? I think that you do.” That heavily accented, deep voice was doing ridiculous things to Will; his pupils dilated and he finished the scotch in a single swallow before putting the glass down on the table.

 

“Want,” he said, in a huff of air, “want you to touch me. Please.”

 

“Was that so difficult?” asked Dr. Lecter, getting to his feet with his usual economical grace. Will looked up at him, rather at a loss for words, as Hannibal casually slid the table out of the way, then returned to the sofa; with his clever surgeon’s fingers, he deftly began to unbutton Will’s chambray shirt, pushing it off his shoulders to lean into the hollow of his throat and inhale his scent deeply before licking a hot stripe up the side of his neck, drawing a shocked gasp from Will. Teasingly, his sharp teeth grazed the skin, and unbidden, the memory arose in Dr. Lecter’s mind of the feminine scrawl across the grocery store receipt and instinctively, without pausing to consider, he bit down. Will cried out at the unexpected pinch of sharp teeth, but the sudden violence made his hips buck upward and he was fully hard, aching, and Hannibal increased the pressure with a low growl deep in his throat; it was a savage, possessive bite and Will’s hands found his biceps and squeezed brutally in response, short nails digging into the flesh beneath the casual button down shirt that Dr. Lecter was wearing.

 

Hannibal drew back, firmly reigning in the primitive urge to draw blood, and finished unfastening Will’s shirt as the younger man watched him through lust hooded eyes, his plush lips parted with painful anticipation and arousal. His cock was straining against the unforgiving denim of his jeans, and Dr. Lecter took a moment to appreciate the decadent sight that he presented like this before sliding to his knees in front of Will; his hands slid over the profiler’s muscular thighs, pushing them apart without encountering any resistance. Looking down at the cannibal kneeling between his legs, Will flushed a beautiful color, uttering a low, unthinking moan.

 

“Hannibal – please,” he whispered, as Dr. Lecter ran the palm of his hand over the hard swell of Will’s cock; the younger man thrust up against the contact, nearly whining when the hand was withdrawn. It was only briefly, however, as Hannibal made quick, expert work of unfastening his jeans and pulling down the zipper. Will lifted his hips without being asked, so that Hannibal could drag the boxers and jeans over his hips; his cock sprang free, heavy and flushed, glistening wet at the rosy tip.

 

“Are you quite certain that you don’t want me to wear surgical gloves?” inquired Hannibal, a glint of wicked amusement cross his severe features. Will’s cock twitched involuntarily at the idea, and he chuffed a strained bite of a laugh.

 

“Just want to feel _you_ ,” he said, breathlessly.

 

“Oh, and you will,” said Hannibal, looking up at Will’s discomposed face with the weight of a promise that would not be completely fulfilled today. His hand – ungloved – encircled the base of Will’s cock, stroking the length of the pulsing shaft with expert precision and a dreadful patience that had Will gasping harshly and writhing against the sofa. When Dr. Lecter ran his hot tongue unexpectedly up the underside of the firm flesh, Will nearly came completely off the sofa; Hannibal pinned him down with a forearm across his pelvis and then swallowed him to the hilt.

 

He was repeating Hannibal’s name in hoarse gasps, intertwined with an exquisite stream of profanity, as Dr. Lecter sucked him down in steady strokes, his throat constricting around the bulbous head as he deliberately swallowed around it, then pulling back and swirling his tongue around the head until Will thought he might truly lose his mind. He felt the pressure of his orgasm building with nearly terrifying intensity; a steady litany of ohgod-ohgod-ohgod fell from his lips unnoticed as the heat uncoiled in his loins and his cock jerked and pulsed. As he spilled himself into Hannibal’s throat at last, the pleasure was so intense he hardly thought that he could bear it; Dr. Lecter savored every bittersweet drop, his hooded eyes unfocused with desire and unfettered hedonistic pleasure. He finally sat back, the tip of his tongue briefly touching his full bottom lip, and looked up at Will, who was completely unraveled, his chest heaving with aftershocks.

 

At last, Will said weakly,

 

“You really are the devil, do you know that?”

 

Dr. Lecter merely smiled, denying nothing.


	11. Chapter 11

Presently, Will, having caught his breath a bit, watched Hannibal get to his feet with his customary smooth grace. His eyes widened a fraction, turquoise in the afternoon light filtering through the blinds, as he caught sight of the hard, thick line of Dr. Lecter’s erection, impossible to miss in his casual slacks.

 

“Do you want me to – I mean, you never … “ fumbled Will, suddenly very aware that while Hannibal had very effectively gotten him off twice in one day, he hadn’t done anything to reciprocate. The dying flush in his cheeks flared back to life. Hannibal regarded him with a fond expression, almost feline in its subtle amusement.

 

“Will, you do not have to ask for permission to touch me if you wish to. But you needn’t concern yourself – I can assure you that I am _quite_ satisfied.” This last fell from his lips in a low, sensual rumble that Will felt all the way to his toes.

 

“It feels almost taboo,” murmured Will, his mouth quirking with an ironic smile despite his reverent tone, pausing before reaching out and resting a palm against the solid, warm muscle of Hannibal’s flank.

 

“Taboo because you’ve never been attracted to men before?”

 

“No,” said Will, after a moment’s pause, “taboo because it’s _you_. Everything I’ve ever known tells me I shouldn’t want this – that it’s wrong. It doesn’t _feel_ wrong.”

 

“Society dictates what we consider taboo,” observed Hannibal, looming over Will; a shadow, backlit by the winter sun.

 

“In the breaking of taboos, we liberate ourselves from social conformities and become more completely ourselves – I prefer to consider my choices in terms of personal preference.”

 

“Well, you would, wouldn’t you?” said Will, wryly, his palm sliding over the lean muscle beneath his hand in a slow exploration of Hannibal’s thigh, “after all, cannibalism is one of the biggest taboos in the Western world.”

 

“As I once told Gideon,” said Hannibal, “it’s only cannibalism if one is consuming an equal.”

 

Will’s hand ran upward over the thick bulge of Dr. Lecter’s cock, rigid, hot and of a prodigious size that made Will's stomach perform a slightly nervous flip, through the material separating their skin, and they both heard Hannibal take his next breath.

 

“And if you _had_ eaten me?” asked Will, softly.

 

“It would most _certainly_ have been cannibalism, Will,” breathed Hannibal. Will squeezed, lightly, experimentally, drawing a sharp breath from Dr. Lecter. Will looked up at him, an almost intoxicated look crossing his fine features, and Hannibal had to deliberately compose himself; he stepped away to collect his tablet, and busied himself pouring them both another drink. Will watched him for a moment, then started putting himself together again; he was fastening his shirt buttons when Hannibal placed a refilled Scotch glass on the table and slid the table back where it had been before he’d moved it in order to vacate an appropriate amount of floor space for other pursuits. He sat down beside Will, cradling his glass in one hand and opened the cover of the tablet to check the latest news. The headline, in a thick black, accusatory font, read:

 

MURDER HUSBANDS SPOTTED IN ATLANTA

 

Below this, a still shot from a security camera inside what could only be a Wal-Mart, zoomed in on two male figures. It was not a high resolution image, and Hannibal’s face was not in view, as he’d been habitually avoiding any security cameras, but his poise and silver streaked hair was hard to mistake; Will, on the other hand, was quite recognizable and wearing a bit of a schadenfreude grin.

 

“Shit,” swore Will, running a hand over his face. Hannibal, refraining from any variation of “I told you so” (as he deemed it quite unnecessary), scanned the article.

 

“According to this, their FBI ‘source’ thinks we’re heading for the Mexican border,” he commented.

 

“If they really do think that, they won’t think it for long,” said Will, restlessly, “we should go.” Hannibal looked contemplative and unruffled as he considered.

 

“How long do you think it will take them to find this place, Will?” he asked. Will forced himself back into the mental space of an investigator and thought it over; finally, he said,

 

“Probably two days, maybe three. If we’re lucky.”

 

“That ought to be long enough.”

 

“For what?”

 

“For me to kill you, of course,” said Hannibal, the corner of his mouth quirking upward a bit, “is there a hospital nearby?”

 

“Closest one is in Raceland,” replied Will, his brow furrowed slightly as he attempted to imagine what Hannibal was up to, “Ochsner St. Anne. Why?”

 

“There are some supplies that we’re going to need. We haven’t the time to shop around, I will need to go directly to the source.”

 

“Are you going to tell me what you’re planning to do or continue to be mysterious?” inquired Will, a little crossly.

 

“My apologies, Will,” said Hannibal, not sounding particularly contrite, “in order for Jack and the FBI to believe that you’re dead, we needn’t leave anything besides a quantity of blood that you could not survive without.”

 

“They’ll test it, of course – it would have to be _my_ blood.”

 

“Of course. That’s precisely the plan,” said Dr. Lecter. Will’s eyebrow climbed a bit higher than usual.

 

“Won’t I be needing that?” he said, dryly, “or are you planning to eat me after all?”

 

“While my appetite for you will always be keen, Will, I much prefer the world with you in it. We’ll be replacing whatever you lose, of course.”

 

“Your plan is to bleed me half to death and then give me a transfusion? Oh – that’s why… Jesus, Hannibal.”

 

“Only a moment ago, you were calling me the devil,” observed Dr. Lecter, amused.

 

“Probably more accurate,” muttered Will. He met Hannibal’s eyes and said,

 

“So when are we doing this?”

 

“I see no reason to procrastinate, do you?”

 


	12. Chapter 12

In the Land Rover, on the way to Raceland, Will studied Hannibal’s noble profile sidelong in silence for so long that Hannibal finally looked askance at him.

 

“You needn’t worry, Will – I’ve performed many of these procedures, if that’s what’s bothering you.”

 

“I figured you had,” said Will, wryly, “since you were a surgeon. And I’ve had the procedure performed before – _twice_. Once was thanks to you. I suppose I don’t need to tell you my blood type, do I?”

 

Unperturbed, Hannibal glanced at him again, keeping his left hand absently resting on the wheel as they made their way down the nearly empty road through the bayou.

 

“B positive - you’ve been successfully crossmatched with O positive and B negative donors; Maryland Misericordia typed you with the O positive, without serological abnormalities,” he said, evenly, “the B negative match was in New Orleans, almost ten years ago. I should like to hear about the events that led to that one day.”

 

“It’s not much of a story,” said Will, dismissively, “I was shot by a crackhead trying to rob a liquor store.” He raised a cynical eyebrow and added,

 

“I should have known you’d manage to get access to my medical records.” A faint smile touched Dr. Lecter’s mouth.

 

“One never knows when certain information might prove valuable,” he said.

 

“I think you just wanted to look at the gory details and remember what it was like to slide your knife into me,” said Will; his tone was bitter on top with a base note of hunger.

 

“I don’t need your medical records for that, Will,” said Dr. Lecter, the deep rasp of his voice making Will shiver involuntarily.

 

“However, I will admit to a certain … curiosity.”

 

“You have absolutely no grasp of the concept of boundaries,” said Will, crossly.

 

“I understand the concept of boundaries perfectly well,” said Hannibal, amused, “I merely prefer to decide for myself where and when I intend to breach them.” He gave Will a brief, sidelong look that made the younger man flush slightly at the undertone of the conversation.

 

They were in Raceland now; it wasn’t a large town by any stretch of the imagination, or particularly scenic with its scattering of fast food drive thrus and rows of low, bungalow style houses that had been built in the late 1970s. Ochsner St. Anne Hospital was four floors high on one side and three on the other, separated by a blocky central tower emblazoned with the name of the hospital. It was not particularly large as far as hospitals go, the parking lot flanked by a CVS and Griffin’s Po’ Boy Shop. Hannibal pulled the mud-splashed Land Rover into it, parking at the edge of the lot.

 

“Now what?” asked Will, “do I come in with you?”

 

“No,” said Hannibal, “wait for me here. I won’t be long.” He was dressed in the sort of worn, thick coveralls that a repairman might be expected to wear; he plucked a long billed hat from the glovebox and put it on to shield his face from any security cameras.

 

He started to open the door, and Will hissed,

 

“Wait – what are you going to do, just wander around in there til you find what you’re after?” A look of mild surprise crossed Hannibal’s generally inscrutable features and he said,

 

“Of course not, Will – the place is hardly large enough to get lost in, but I did take the precaution of downloading a hospital floor plan last night. I understand they have quite an adequate blood bank.”

 

“You were already thinking about this last night..?”

 

“It did cross my mind; the general outline, if not the particulars.” With that, Hannibal slid gracefully out of the Land Rover and closed the door behind him, pausing to open the back door and retrieve a carry all from the back seat that looked as though it could have held tools. Will watched him casually cross the parking lot with  a completely different gait than his usual efficient prowl; the bundled up man in the dirty cap walked as though he had slightly bad knees. He paused at a side door, then let himself in and disappeared from view, leaving Will to fidget in the passenger seat.

 

“I can’t believe I’m sitting here waiting for Hannibal Fucking Lecter to steal blood from a blood bank,” he muttered under his breath, “Freddie Lounds would have a _field_ day with _this_.”

 

Without even the distraction of a cell phone, he drummed his fingers idly upon his thighs in a nervous rhythm and found himself wondering how Hannibal was planning to harvest his blood for this little charade. He had no doubt whatsoever that Dr. Lecter had something in mind; he always did. Scenarios played through his exquisitely honed imagination, both disturbing and strangely erotic, and it was twenty minutes later before he began to get anxious again. Half expecting a dozen police cars to come screeching up in front of the hospital with lights and sirens on full blast, Will scanned the parking lot and the street beyond it, watching people come and go.

 

When Hannibal emerged from the front door some time later, Will didn’t recognize him immediately, since he’d been expecting him to come out dressed the same as when he’d gone in. It was the way he moved that gave him away first; the unconscious grace of his stride was as distinctive as his face. However, he was no longer clad in the workman’s coveralls, but in scrubs under a white lab coat, a purloined stethoscope around his neck worn in the fashionable boa drape; he was carrying the large tote he’d taken in with him, slightly incongruous with the lab coat, but nobody paid the slightest bit of attention to him as he walked over to the Land Rover, placed the bag in the back seat and climbed behind the driver’s wheel. Will, realizing his mouth was open, shut it with a snap.

 

“Did you … get everything you need?” he asked, intensely and helplessly aware of the inexplicable effect Dr. Lecter’s professional attire was having on him. Hannibal, not in the least oblivious, looked like the cat that got the cream.

 

“I believe that we should be adequately outfitted now,” he said, “but we ought to go straight to the house; this will need to be refrigerated immediately.”

 

“How are you going to do it?” asked Will, rather abruptly, as the Land Rover cruise sedately down the road. His cheeks were distinctly pink.

 

“It shouldn’t be difficult; it’s a very simple procedure, really. We haven’t a proper IV stand of course, but the coat rack from the front foyer ought to do perfectly well,” replied Hannibal, mildly.

 

“That’s not what I mean,” muttered Will, running a hand distractedly though his curls, “and you’re being deliberately obtuse. How are you planning to get that much blood from me?”

 

“How would you like me to do it, Will?” inquired Hannibal softly, with a sidelong glance. Will swallowed audibly, his mouth suddenly very dry.

 

“I’d have to think about it,” he said, at length.

 

“You like the idea, though, don’t you?” observed Dr. Lecter, as the road unfurled in their path like a rough, blacktop ribbon, darkening toward twilight, “you want it to hurt.”

 

“I want it to _scar_ ,” murmured Will, “a visible seam between the edges of my old life and whatever _this_ is.” A smile crossed Hannibal’s severe features as he turned into the long driveway toward their borrowed house.

 

“I think you know what this is now,” he said, turning to face Will as he killed the engine. Will merely nodded, and slipped out of the vehicle.


	13. Chapter 13

BATON ROUGE, LA

 

Bobby Graham had been following the news with fascination since his cousin had been reported missing – kidnapped by the Chesapeake Ripper no less. It had been quite the talk of the family when Will had managed to claw his way out of the boatyards he’d grown up in to first study criminology at Tulane, and then join the New Orleans police department; the Grahams had more often than not fallen on the opposite side of the fence when it came to law enforcement. When he’d been shot, everyone assumed he’d be back - tinkering with motors for his dad, fly fishing on his days off - but he hadn’t. Still stubbornly bucking the odds, he’d ended up in Quantico, consulting for the damn FBI, of all things. He’d been generally written off by what was left of the family when he hadn’t been back for Bill’s funeral – not that Will and his father had ever been close, but that was still his old man. Bobby supposed if Delphine had been alive, she would probably have approved; she might have fallen in love with Bill Graham when he was a handsome ne’er do well captaining her father’s houseboat, but, not unlike Will himself, she’d always been what the Graham family considered Odd. Pretty, sure – but always with her nose in a book and her head in the clouds; couldn’t fathom the idea of her baby boy going straight to work after high school instead of college. Bobby hadn’t been surprised when she’d been carried off by the flu before she turned thirty five; she was like some hothouse flower that can’t survive outside the greenhouse – all sweet petals, easily crushed by a careless hand, a fleeting beauty that was ultimately doomed.

 

Bobby had been getting quite a lot of mileage out of the news coverage on Will Graham’s kidnapping at the local bar, and he was happy enough about that, regardless of his general puzzlement over his wayward cousin. He privately thought that Will had probably had it coming – that’s what you get when you go looking for all the crazies: eventually you find them. Of course he wasn’t about to pass that bit of worldly wisdom along to his current date; a couple of notches physically (if not mentally) above what he usually went home with after a night of boozing, she was petite, curvy in all the right places, and most importantly, hanging onto his every word with wide eyed enthusiasm. Also, her name was Candi. With an “i”. She was straight out of a porno – his favorite stereotype.

 

“I’d hate to think what his mother would have been going through if she were alive, bless her soul,” he said, with an appropriately doleful expression, “another shot of that Jack, darlin’?”

 

“Sure … so is it true?”

 

“Is what true?” inquired Bobby, hoisting an eyebrow. Despite the fact that he was carrying an extra forty lbs of beer gut over Will, the expression fleetingly showed a family resemblance.

 

“ _You_ know,” she said, looking up at him coyly, “is your cousin _murder husbands_ with Dr. Lecter?”

 

Bobby rolled his eyes. If he had a dollar for every time someone brought up that damned article he’d be a rich man by now.

 

“That’s just some yellow journalist trying to sell papers,” he grumbled, “ain’t no way my cousin’s into that shit. Especially not with some nutjob.”

 

“Tattlecrime says your _cousin’s_ kind of a nutjob.” A bubble gum pink pout followed, and kept him sweet on the conversation.

 

“Nah, he’s kinda weird like his mama, but he’s no nutjob. All that psycho stuff was from when Lecter framed him. Ain’t none of it true.”

 

“Wanna get out of here?”

 

Bobby, who sure as hell did, considered this for a moment; he couldn’t take her back to the damn hotel where his buddy Rich was currently sleeping off a two day bender, and his own luxurious single wide with the mountain of dirty laundry on the sofa and kitchen full of empty bottles and pizza boxes wasn’t much of an improvement. Well hell, he’d been meaning to check up on grandma’s old place.

 

“I got a place,” he said, “but it’s an hour or so away.”

 

“That’s so _far_ ,” sighed Candi, “I can spend the night, right?”

 

“Sure thing,” said Bobby, “come on – truck’s right outside.”

 

*

 

DES ALLEMANDS, LA

 

With all of his preparations made to extract an obscene amount of Will’s blood, Hannibal turned his attention to dinner; while he was busying himself with the ingredients Will had picked up at the store, the profiler sat at the counter and perused Tattlecrime on Hannibal’s tablet, occasionally stealing a glance over the top of it to watch Dr. Lecter move around the kitchen. Even though they hadn’t been occupying the house for long, Hannibal was unquestionably king of the domain, purposeful and confident as he seasoned finely diced pieces of Sonny Devereaux, sizzling at the bottom of a heavy dutch oven, and used the fat to brown the quartered chicken. A delicious aroma arose as he deftly removed the chicken and added onions and carrots for mirepoix to the pot, along with minced garlic.

 

“What are we having?” inquired Will, watching the play of lean muscle in Dr. Lecter’s back as he chopped thyme. Somewhat to Will’s disappointment, he’d changed out of his scrubs and lab coat to make dinner and put on the clothes he’d been wearing earlier.

 

“Coq au Vin,” replied Hannibal, “you’ll need to be properly fed and rested before we begin.”

 

“Aren’t we starting tonight?”

 

“We will begin the process, yes; however, the majority of the procedure should be done tomorrow,” said Dr. Lecter, adding a splash of cognac before returning the browned chicken to the pot, then adding wine, chicken stock and the fresh thyme he’d just chopped and covering it with a heavy lid to simmer.

 

“Where am I going to die?” said Will, a look of wry humor crossing his features, “in the parlor, with the candlestick?”

 

“Where would you like to die?” Hannibal, his culinary preparations well in hand, washed his hands and came to stand at the counter just across from him. His tone was casual, but there was a depth of heat in his unusual colored eyes that dragged a rough finger of lust down Will’s spine, sending an involuntary shiver rippling over him and raising the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck.

 

“I don’t have a preference, I guess,” he said, “anywhere we can make the most mess.”

 

“Would you prefer for Jack to believe that your murder was mercifully swift? It’s your story, Will … we will tell it however you wish.”

 

Will considered this, turning over possible scenarios, his imagination supplying him with a crystal clear picture of Jack Crawford’s horrified face; the pallid nausea of the forensic techs.

 

“Let him think that you tore me apart,” he breathed, fingers tightening on the cover of the tablet until the tips turned white. Hannibal came around the counter then, his hands sliding up over the younger man’s biceps to rest upon his shoulders, warm and deadly and exactly what Will wanted. The solid weight of him close behind made Will’s breath stutter briefly.

 

“It would be my pleasure, Will,” came the low pitched rasp of Hannibal’s reply.


	14. Chapter 14

After the dinner dishes were cleared away and washed (a joint effort that was uncharacteristically domestic for a pair of violent confirmed killers), Hannibal dried his hands meticulously and focused his attention fully upon Will, enigmatic and unsettlingly weighted. After a pause, he spoke into the sudden quiet.

 

“Are you ready to begin, Will?”

 

“Yes. What – I mean, where do you want to do this?” The profiler didn’t even bother anymore to wonder what it said about him that the anticipation of being bled by the Chesapeake Ripper made his jeans uncomfortably tight at the groin despite the warning of his nerve endings, heat coalescing at the base of his spine. After all, Hannibal had been right – he knew what this was now.

 

“Your bedroom, I think. You’ll be more comfortable,” said Hannibal, with a considering look, then offered a twitch of a smile before adding,

 

“I imagine that will mean that we’ll have to share my bed afterwards.” Will could have pointed out that there was another bedroom besides the two in question, but elected not to; sharing Hannibal’s bed was not only inevitable, it was practically irresistible.

 

“I’m sure we’ll manage,” he said, wryly.

 

“I’ll be there in a moment; I need to gather some things,” said Dr. Lecter. Will, his pulse elevated in acute anticipation and a thrill of fear that was somehow complimentary to it, followed him to the end of the hall, then parted ways to head to the master bedroom while Hannibal went to retrieve whatever he deemed necessary for the procedure.

 

*

 

Meanwhile, Bobby Graham was having a hard time driving because Candi, lubricated with too much Fireball whiskey from the pint she’d had stashed in her purse, was halfway in his lap and puffing cinnamon scented breath and an intermittent stream of mostly incoherent flirtation into his ear. This was shaping up to be a great evening, as long as he managed to avoid a DUI and she didn’t pass out before he got her to the house. She still seemed to be fairly alert if not exactly coherent, and they didn’t have too far to go now, so he was fairly optimistic. He turned up the radio and let John Fogerty drown out whatever nonsense was spilling from her lips along with the occasional teasing tickle of her tongue against his earlobe.

 

*

 

Hannibal walked into Will’s bedroom with his medical bag in one hand, to find Will standing at the foot of the bed waiting for him; he paused a moment to admire the look of mingled hunger and unease on the younger man’s face, beautifully side lit by the muted glow of the table lamp, before putting the bag down on the nearby armchair.

 

“Do you want me to undress?” inquired Will, dragging the last word out slightly and tilting his head a fraction in a coy manner that was certainly deliberate. This gesture was met with a look of such dark approval that a tremor shook him briefly.

 

“Permit me,” said Hannibal, closing the already scant distance between them with a single step, lithe and dangerous. He wasn’t much taller than Will, but the difference felt more pronounced than it actually was; Will felt as though a predator was looming over him. It wasn’t unpleasant at all – rather, he met and held Dr. Lecter’s gaze steadily, the tip of his pink tongue briefly appearing to moisten his lips. Hannibal began to unfasten the gray chambray shirt that Will was wearing, his fingers moving over the buttons with swift dexterity until it fell open, and then pushing the fabric back over his shoulders to tug the sleeves free. Apparently in no hurry, he idly tossed the shirt across the bed and then tugged the hem of the white undershirt up to expose the pale, toned flesh of the younger man’s belly, bisected by the thick scar tissue of the smile Dr. Lecter had once left him with. Hannibal paused to trace the scar with his fingertips, and Will shuddered visibly, nipples peaky through the thin white fabric briefly before that article of clothing joined the chambray shirt on the bed behind him, leaving him bare from the waist up. Dr. Lecter stepped away then, removing a pair of blue surgical gloves from his medical bag and pulling them on with practiced ease while Will watched, his ocean colored gaze drawn to those lethal gloved hands like a magnet, pupils wide and dark with an almost suffocating excitement. Hannibal reached into the bag and deftly plucked something else out. When he turned back toward Will, the lamp light pooled along the razor sharp edge of the scalpel in his hand.

 

*

 

Approaching on the road, a truck engine was growing louder, but the trees and distance from the road didn’t enable much noise to reach the house. Bobby’s old Dodge Ram slowed, brake lights flashing red briefly, then turned down the long driveway.

 

“Is this it? Are we here?” asked Candi, fishing in her purse and then reapplying lipstick. Bobby wished she wouldn’t; he hated the way the stuff tasted, but didn’t want to risk losing her amorous mood, so he kept it to himself and hoped for an opportunity to get rid of it as soon as they were inside. Plenty of places for her mouth besides on his, anyway, he thought. Then he turned the corner and saw the house, and forgot briefly about Candi and her warm mouth; while Hannibal had parked the Land Rover down the side of the house where it couldn’t be seen, the living room light was visible through the blinds.

 

“Sonofabitch!” he swore, “somebody’s here.”

 

“Like who?” asked Candi with a frown, looking all over the place for any sign of a person or car.

 

“Don’t know,” said Bobby, reaching behind the seat for the shotgun he kept there in case of trouble, “but they’re gonna be sorry as hell they picked this house to break into.” He slid out of the truck, turned back and said,

 

“You better wait here.”

 

“Don’t leave me here by myself!” exclaimed Candi, “what if they come out the back and … take me hostage or something?!”

 

Bobby paused to consider the options; it was probably just kids messing around, or maybe a local meth head looking for something to steal; no doubt they’d run when he came in armed, and besides, it was a good opportunity to look like the hero.

 

“Okay,” he said, gruffly, “but stay behind me.”

 

“Okay,” she whispered, eyes shining with excitement as she hopped out of the truck and glued herself to his hip, wobbling a bit in her high heels as they crossed the muddy path leading to the front porch. Bobby made an effort to walk quietly, though the steps creaked under his weight; Candi’s shoes clattered as she stepped up, and he turned toward her and said, in a stage whisper,

 

“Take off your shoes. Leave ‘em out here.” Nodding, she delicately stepped out of the patent leather pumps, leaving them neatly at the top of the steps. Bobby tried the knob and found the lock broken; while unbeknownst to him, the state of the lock was due to Sonny Devereaux’ ill-fated attempt to rob the house the night before, it was exactly what he was expecting, so he took it as confirmation of his earlier assessment of the situation.

 

“Lock’s broke,” he murmured to Candi, who nodded with wide-eyed enthusiasm.

 

*

 

“Where shall I open you up first?” said Hannibal, softly. Gently, he drew the blade of the scalpel across the side of Will’s pale, exposed neck; beads of blood welled up in its wake and Will inhaled a shuddering gasp. Dr. Lecter leaned closer to capture a droplet of blood with a hot swipe of his tongue, savoring the metallic flavor on his tongue; tasting pure _Will_ , from the inside out.

 

The blade was ice cold against the firm flesh of the younger man’s smoothly muscled chest as Hannibal’s warm breath ghosted over his jaw and his mouth settled over Will’s, as hot as a fever and equally dizzying. He murmured against Will’s lips,

 

“Perhaps I’ll eat your heart.”

 

*

 

Bobby turned the doorknob and eased the front door open as quietly as he could, sticking his head inside to peer around the foyer and dining room, and the small part of the kitchen that he could see from the front door. Not seeing anyone, he stepped cautiously into the house. It was quiet, and he wondered whether whoever it was had already gone and just left the lights on; strangely though, he could smell the lingering aromas of cooking. Venturing into the kitchen, he saw a rack of dishes drying, and a half empty bottle of red wine on the counter.

 

“Squatters,” he mumbled, a little nonplussed. Candi remained quiet, padding along barefoot in his wake, taking everything in for tomorrow’s gossip session with the other girls at the pizza joint where she waitressed part time. She couldn’t wait to tell them how she’d gone home with the infamous missing FBI agent’s cousin and busted some burglars. They moved toward the hallway leading to the back of the house, and now they were able to follow the lamp light under the door of the master bedroom.

 

“Sure as shit they’re in there,” he whispered, a buzzed and randy part of him privately hoping to stumble on someone fucking and getting a good eyeful. Raising the shotgun, he turned the doorknob and gently pushed open the bedroom door, Candi on his heels. Nothing could have prepared him for the unexpected sight that greeted him on the other side of the door.

 

A far cry from the desperate (possibly naked) crackheads he was imagining, his very shirtless, supposedly missing cousin was standing beside the bed, bleeding from a cut over his heart and another across the side of his neck (though at a glance, neither appeared to be too deep). He looked rather startled. The opposite of startled, Hannibal Lecter turned unhurriedly toward the uninvited visitors, a scalpel in one gloved hand and an eyebrow hoisted as though he was being interrupted having brandy and cigars in the drawing room by some unsavory characters who’d stumbled in off the street. He made no move to take advantage of their surprise; rather, he merely watched Will’s face as the situation clarified itself.

 

Candi screamed at the top of her lungs, instantly recognizing both Hannibal and Will, and startling Bobby even further. The shotgun swung up, aimed at Hannibal, and Bobby shouted,

 

“You better put that knife down or I’m gonna shoot you dead!! I’m holdin’ you for the cops but if you so much as move in this direction, your ass is dead!” Hannibal, looking mildly amused and irritated all at once, looked sidelong toward Will as Bobby added,

 

“Will, don’t worry man, I got you now – come on over here, we’re getting you out of here.”

 

“You’re really Will Graham!” gasped Candi, torn between excitement and wariness at the presence of a certain cannibal. Will crossed the room to Bobby, offering him a broad, disarming smile.

 

“Thanks Bobby,” he said. Then, quick as a striking snake, he grabbed the shotgun by the barrel and yanked, easily jerking it out of his surprised cousin’s grip; Bobby’s mouth opened like a confused fish, as Will swiftly reversed the gun and swept the stock in a hard arc that crashed into his cousin’s temple, dropping him like a bag of rocks. Candi shrieked in shocked outrage as Hannibal, with his usual elegant economy of motion, crossed the floor behind Bobby’s limp form, holding the scalpel in his teeth to briefly free up his hands. A swift step behind her, and he easily snapped her neck with a brutal twist; she fell to the ground with her head tilted at an unnatural, impossible angle, wide eyes already glazing over.

 

Will looked up at Hannibal then, and said, in a slightly accusing tone,

 

“You knew they were in the house, didn’t you? You heard them. Why didn’t you say anything?”

 

“I was curious,” replied Dr. Lecter, calmly.

 

“Curious what I would do?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Well, now you know,” said Will, looking down at the inert body of his cousin. He was unconscious but still alive.

 

“What shall we do with him?” he asked.

 

“What do _you_ think, Will?”

 

Instead of replying, Will began to drag Bobby’s limp body facedown out of the room, laying the shotgun on his back between his shoulder blades for convenience; he slid fairly easily on the hardwood, even though he was a dead weight. Hannibal picked up Candi’s body and carried her out draped over his shoulder; having had a great deal of experience moving bodies, it wasn’t much of a challenge given her relative size. Will, with some effort, managed to get Bobby out onto the porch and then down the steps so that he was lying in the muddy yard. He picked up Bobby’s shotgun, broke it open to make sure it was loaded, and then, without bothering to turn him over, socked the butt of the gun solidly against his shoulder, gripping the forestock with his left hand, aimed and then pulled the trigger. Bobby Graham’s head exploded like an overripe melon, leaving nothing but pulp from the jaw on up.

 

Hannibal watched this brutal, efficient murder carried out with something akin to awe; this was a darkly confident Will, no longer constrained by the thorny hedges of morality in his mind. It was beautiful to behold. Will, his finely muscled torso white in the moonlight, looked over at Dr. Lecter with an expression that was oddly at peace; the harshness that he wore like a shield against the constant onslaught of his curse of empathy had dissipated and left something else in its place; perhaps acceptance.

 

“We can leave them in the truck bed for now,” he said, at length.

 

“I’ll take care of them later,” agreed Hannibal, who already had something in mind. He carried Candi’s limp body over to the truck and tossed her indifferently into the bed before lowering the tailgate and helping Will move his much heavier cousin to join her. Even missing the ten or eleven lbs or so for his head, he was a substantial dead weight. They headed back inside, Will carrying the shotgun with him.


	15. Chapter 15

Once inside, Will dragged a chair from the dining room and propped the back of it under the front doorknob, to Hannibal’s private amusement. He turned to face Dr. Lecter then, a glint of deep hunger in his sea green eyes that Hannibal found himself viscerally drawn to.

 

“Come to me, Will,” he said, low pitched; it was very nearly a growl, and Will responded to the predatory undertone on a purely instinctive level, crossing the floor swiftly toward Hannibal with feral intent. Their lips were inches apart, breathing the same air as the moment spun out between them for what felt like a very long time; then, Will’s hands came up to grasp Hannibal’s shoulders with bruising force, short nails digging into the skin through the white shirt he was wearing to tear ineffectual gouges into the muscle beneath. The muted pain lighting swift fire to his nerve endings, Dr. Lecter seized Will in brutal response; one hand looped around the younger man’s slender, firm waist to pull him flush against the front of Hannibal’s body, the other closing fiercely over his hip and squeezing hard. When their mouths came together, it was a rough, slick slide of hot tongues and nipping teeth, Hannibal’s sharp canines catching the plump curve of Will’s lower lip and drawing blood. Will was moaning into his mouth with shameless arousal as Dr. Lecter slid both hands firmly up over the muscled expanse of the younger man’s back and dragged hot sparks of pain down it with his fingernails.

 

“Make me bleed,” gasped Will, drawing back just enough to utter the words, his breath hot against Hannibal’s dangerous mouth.

 

They barely made it to Will’s bedroom before he was tugging at Hannibal’s shirt, ripping buttons loose in his haste to disrobe him. For once not in the least mindful of his wardrobe, Hannibal helped him, sliding his arms out of the sleeves as Will threw the article of clothing aside and buried his face in Hannibal’s bare shoulder, small canines worrying the muscle there as his fingers mindlessly dug into Dr. Lecter’s upper arms. Hannibal, ever mindful of his self-control, was struggling to maintain it despite the necessity; even red with a haze of lust, his mind recognized that the last thing he needed to do was carry out what he’d set out to do earlier with Will’s straining cock pushed wantonly into his lower hip. Summoning the shreds of his self-discipline, he spoke into Will’s ear, rough and low.

 

“On the bed. Take off the rest of your clothes.”

 

Shivering almost imperceptibly, Will did as he was told; he toed off his shoes and dropped his jeans and underwear, tugging off his socks along with them and leaving everything in a pile on the floor before crawling onto the bed, his heated gaze settling upon Hannibal with what felt like physical weight. He was a classic Grecian sculpture of toned muscle and pale skin, marked at the neck and breast with shallow cuts; a light foreplay to Dr. Lecter’s later intentions. Hannibal’s elegant fingers curled around the scalpel he’d used earlier, his maroon gaze traveling over Will’s supine body with open pleasure, a darkness in his eyes that made the younger man shiver slightly in mingled anticipation and delicious unease, his hard cock twitching almost imperceptibly against the flat plane of his abdomen. Taking a moment to let his pulse subside to a steady and relatively sedate sixty, Hannibal took his time cleaning the blade with alcohol, and laying out an assortment of first aid supplies across the dresser; he neatly arranged his suturing tools and sealed containers of wound dressings while Will watched from the bed, his own heart racing. Finally, he tugged a pair of surgical gloves from the box inside his bag and pulled them on as he turned toward his patient, which was currently a misnomer as Will was visibly squirming, his cock leaking a slippery trail onto his belly. If Hannibal had been a religious man, he might have offered up a prayer of thanks for such a vision; however, as he was not, his worship, and the accompanying sacrificial rituals, were reserved for Will Graham.

 

Collecting his scalpel, the alcohol and a bag of cotton balls, he went to the bed and placed them on the nightstand.

 

“Aren’t you going to get something to uh … collect it in?” inquired Will, as Hannibal neatly soaked a cotton ball in alcohol.

 

“No,” came the steady reply, “at least, not tonight. I believe that your request would involve quite a mess – for verisimilitude, I think that we can afford to improvise. Give me your hand, please.” Will’s tongue touched his bloody bottom lip in decadent contemplation, before his eyes lifted to meet Hannibal’s and he extended the hand closest to Dr. Lecter, palm up as if in supplication. Cold wetness chilled his wrist and forearm, as Hannibal swiped the alcohol soaked cotton over his skin, meticulously cleaning away a few dried spatters of Bobby’s blood that lingered there. Will dropped his gaze deliberately to the scar that bisected the inside of Hannibal’s wrist, courtesy of himself (if indirectly), and he said, wryly,

 

“Payback?”

 

“Symmetry,” replied Hannibal, raising his brows a fraction. A faint smile curved his lips, his eyes lidding slightly as he cradled Will’s forearm in his left hand and deftly touched the razor sharp blade of the scalpel to the pale, unmarked skin of Will’s wrist with his right. Will watched intently, holding his breath without realizing it. The blade was so sharp that the pain didn’t register immediately; he saw the stainless steel glimmer in the lamp light, then slide into his skin as if it were as resistant as butter. Thick blood welled up immediately, a fresh, oxygenated bright red; rivulets of it streamed over his forearm and pattered onto the sheets, staining Dr. Lecter’s surgical glove as he sliced expertly through the flesh. Seeing the efficient parting of his skin under Hannibal’s blade made Will a little lightheaded; the pain hit him then, his outraged body sending an alarm through his nerve endings as old as biology itself. A low moan parted his lips, but he made no attempt to move away. When the incision was precisely as long as the matching one on his own left wrist, Dr. Lecter slid the scalpel free and wiped the blade, his gaze intently following the flow of blood that poured freely from Will’s arm now, soaking into the sheets. Gently, he placed Will’s bloody arm by his side on the mattress, and said,

 

“Now the other one.” Will, his eyes meeting Hannibal’s and holding his gaze, offered up his other arm for sacrifice.

 

“Good boy,” breathed Dr. Lecter, cleaning the pale expanse of skin as he’d done the other arm. Will shuddered at the contrast of the cold alcohol on his right wrist and the hot blood and dull throb of his left. Unable to resist, Hannibal brushed the bloody tip of his gloved thumb over Will’s plush bottom lip, leaving a trail of coppery crimson in its wake, then leaned down to kiss him; Will surged forward eagerly to meet his lips, mouth full of the taste of blood as Hannibal’s tongue lapped at his own, savoring the metallic taste of him. The younger man looped his freely bleeding left arm around Dr. Lecter’s neck, pulling him insistently closer as hot blood seeped around Hannibal’s neck, over his shoulders, and dripped in dime sized spatters over Will’s exposed chest and face, smearing carelessly across both of their skin. Hannibal drew back first, the inner predator lurking behind his glacial façade fully awake and straining against its taut leash. An involuntary shudder rippled down his spine and he exhaled a deep breath before once again capturing Will’s right wrist and in a single swift slash, opened the vein with lethal accuracy. No controlled flow this time, a thick spurt of crimson spattered across both the sheets and Will’s bare chest. Will’s breath hitched, and his eyelids fluttered at the sudden pain, an involuntary whine caught behind his clenched teeth.

 

Hannibal deposited the scalpel on the nightstand and stripped off the surgical gloves, _needing_ to feel Will under his bare hands; the profiler was slick with blood, senses screaming with primal distress, sensitized and as awake and alive as he’d ever been. Will watched him, glassy eyed with mingled lust and pain; he lifted his bloody arms, his legs parting in unspoken invitation, and Hannibal went to him, stripping out of his few remaining articles of clothing before crawling onto the bed and between Will’s legs, a low groan in the back of his throat as his cock slid firmly against Will’s, the profiler pulling him closer with a heel hooked around the back of his thigh. Will’s hands slid up over Hannibal’s triceps, halting at his shoulders as the older man rested his weight on his hands to look down at him, and leaving copious trails of blood rolling down Dr. Lecter’s arms.

 

“Do you remember what I said?” whispered Will, breathlessly.

 

“I remember everything you’ve said,” replied Hannibal, low and rough.

 

“Then do it,” said Will, in a near moan, “Hannibal … tear me apart. _Please_.”

 

Hannibal’s breath caught for a moment, and he stilled completely. Then he got up from the bed and went to his medical bag, retrieving the same tube of medical lubricant he’d used previously, and returned swiftly to Will, slicking his hand with a copious amount and spreading it over his cock with his palm as he met the younger man’s heated gaze with his own, the feral instinct usually concealed beneath the civilized veneer fully visible in his eyes. Will spread his thighs further, the muscles pulling taut, his arms outstretched like a debauched crucifixion; blood spread steadily across the white sheets. Hannibal, kneeling between his legs, dragged a slippery finger across his tight entrance and the muscles in Will’s thighs jumped in reaction, a hiss parting his lips as a long, expert finger slid inside his velvety heat, gliding deliberately over his prostate. A second finger stretched and scissored within him, coaxing a rough moan at the unaccustomed burn and building pleasure; Will lifted a hand and deliberately smeared blood across the side of Hannibal’s face, over the severe angle of his cheekbone and his lips, like warpaint. Dr. Lecter turned his face into Will’s wrist rather than away, catching the thick fluid with his tongue at the corner of his mouth as it rolled down his chin, and the final vestiges of his self-control fell away.

 

Sliding his fingers free, he caught Will’s bloody wrists in his hands and restrained them over his head, his body weight pinning Will’s torso against the mattress. Without any further preparation or warning, the thick head of his slick cock pushed against the younger man’s hole and then breached the clinging ring of muscle there in a smooth, brutal thrust, filling Will so completely that he felt as though there was room for nothing else in his entire body, his entire mind. The pain of the incisions in Will’s wrists faded to a distant dull ache, as a rush of intense pleasure mingled with the harsh sting of the unfamiliar stretch; he stuttered a rough, incoherent curse, his head thrown back and blood coursing down his arms toward his elbows, squelching around the grip of Hannibal’s unyielding hands and his veins on fire with adrenaline. His eyes met Hannibal’s; the other man’s hooded gaze was nearly black, a slight flush along his cheekbones where it wasn’t concealed by the savage streaks of blood.

 

“Yes,” he breathed in affirmation, knowing he’d be feeling this for days and wanting it, wanting the reminder of being so thoroughly possessed. Hannibal began to drive into him with deep, punishing thrusts, forcing Will’s body to open to him with every slick, ruthless stretch, dragging the blunt head of his cock over the swelling gland inside him with each unrestrained stroke until Will was moaning with wanton pleasure, and the blood mingled with their sweat in vicious smears. Hannibal released his wrists and caught his jaw in one blood coated hand, and without slowing the cruelly steady thrusts of his hips, leaned in to devour Will’s mouth in a kiss that was nearer to violence than romance – though the two were irrevocably entwined for them – and lapping at the fresh blood smeared across his lips. Will gasped into his mouth as nearly unbearable pleasure began to spiral down his spine, building like thunderheads before a summer storm and just as electric.

 

“ _God_ ,” he gritted out between clenched teeth; his abused hole began to spasm and clench around Hannibal’s length and Dr. Lecter plunged inside him to the hilt, simultaneously burying his bloody face into the hollow of Will’s neck and biting down hard as his orgasm sent violent tremors through his body. Will cried out, shuddering convulsively as he came between them, semen pulsing over his belly to mingle with the blood and sweat that covered them both.

 

For a long time, he was disoriented, the room spinning as he tried to catch his breath; lightheaded with blood loss, Hannibal’s voice sounded as though it was coming from very far away as a vague pressure was applied to his wrist.

 

“Relax, Will. I’m going to look after your wounds now.”


	16. Chapter 16

When Hannibal had finished cleaning and suturing Will’s wrists, he bound them in white gauze; it was a stark contrast to the drying blood that was smeared and dried in crackled swaths over the rest of his body. Hannibal was in very much the same condition, having meticulously washed from the elbows down and donned a clean pair of surgical gloves for the procedure, but savagely covered in spatters and streaks of Will’s blood. The severe lines of his cleanly sculpted face wore bloody war paint well; perhaps appropriately, he bore the daunting visage of a Viking warrior fresh from a vicious pillaging spree. The bed itself was the stuff of nightmares – soaked with blood in both spreading pools and violent splatters, the headboard sticky with red trails darkening to a maroon that was similar to the color of Hannibal’s irises, from where Dr. Lecter had pinned Will’s injured wrists over his head and fucked him into the mattress without mercy. Plenty of evidence of that as well – even a neophyte forensic investigator would take less than three seconds to identify that aspect of the scene.

 

“Is it to your satisfaction, Will?” inquired Hannibal, tilting his head a bit from where he sat on a chair he’d pulled up beside the bed to facilitate his makeshift surgery.

 

Will, sitting on the edge of the bed with his head swimming a little from the blood loss, looked up at him with a quirk of a wry smile touching his lips.

 

“I’d say you’ve outdone yourself, Dr. Lecter,” he replied, twisting to survey the damage to the room before glancing down at his bandaged wrists, “but maybe I should’ve showered before you patched me up.”

 

“I didn’t wish to risk allowing you to lose any more blood,” replied Hannibal, “but you needn’t worry – I promise that you’ll go to bed clean tonight.” From the nightstand beside him, he retrieved two plastic packages labeled SEAL-TIGHT, and opened them one at a time, pulling blue plastic covers over each of Will’s arms and sealing them tidily around the top of his hands and just below his elbows.  He stood then, unconcerned by either his lack of clothing or the blood that he was wearing instead, removing his gloves and dropping them next to the empty SEAL-TIGHT packets. Will’s ocean colored gaze swept over the graceful lines of Hannibal’s strong body, from taut calves to lean thighs and heavy, uncut cock to his solid, furred chest and the elegant, muscular lines of his broad shoulders. He looked every inch the apex predator, streaked with gore. The younger man’s fine features wore an unaccustomed look of frank appreciation, his eyes lidding very slightly in silent contemplation, as Hannibal crossed the room with his usual lithe efficiency, disappearing into the bathroom. A moment later, Will heard the shower running, and then Dr. Lecter emerged from within and said,

 

“Come, Will. If you’ll allow me to attend to the rest of you, the water is quite warm.”

 

He did not return to assist Will as he got up from the bed carefully, pale with blood loss and slightly dizzy, merely waited in the bathroom doorway; Will, who generally did not appreciate coddling, was grateful for it. He went to the shower and paused, looking askance at Hannibal, who said,

 

“Arms over your head, please.” Will obligingly lifted his hands, though it made him feel like a caricature of a bank robbery victim, and stepped into the old claw foot bath tub with Dr. Lecter stepping in behind him to pull the curtain around the bath on its metal rail. Hannibal, a little taller than Will, reached around and caught the profiler’s forearms, guiding them up until his hands touched the rail on either side above the shower head, closing Will’s fingers around the metal so that his fresh dressings were away from the hot water that sluiced over his body, still careful despite the polyvinyl bandage coverings. Will obediently held the railing, his sore body relaxing into the hot stream of water with relief. Hannibal retrieved a wash cloth he’d had draped over the side of the tub and poured a handful of the body wash Will had acquired on their fateful trip to Wal-Mart into it, before beginning to work it over Will’s skin, patiently cleaning the dried blood and semen from his pale thighs and buttocks, then moving to his back. Will groaned and leaned into his firm touch as the tense muscles gradually eased under Hannibal’s deft fingers, hot water sluicing away the evidence of the evening’s debauchery, the metallic scent of blood gradually being replaced by the clean fragrance of the soap.

 

Hannibal paused and reached up to lift Will’s hands away from the rail and directly upward, holding them out of the spray.

 

“Turn around,” he said, and Will did; when he was facing Hannibal, he grasped the rails on either side of the bathtub, elevating his wrists from the hot water and keeping them out of the way while Dr. Lecter continued to cleanse the blood from his torso with the warm wash cloth and apparently infinite patience. Hannibal gently wiped the remaining dried spatters of blood from the contours of Will’s face, then leaned in and pressed their lips together with languorous slowness; Will’s wet lips parted readily, his fingers tightening around the metal curtain rod as Hannibal kissed him thoroughly under the hot water. By the time Hannibal drew back, his own blood streaked face was clean as well.

 

When the hot water eventually began to fail and drove them out of the shower, Will was shivering slightly as the remaining traces of red swirled down the drain and vanished, his arms aching a bit from keeping them elevated and out of the way, as well as the dull throb of the neatly stitched incisions beneath the clean bandages. After he was dry, Hannibal peeled off the wet polyvinyl sleeves and dried around where they’d been sealed.

 

“I’ll be a moment putting things away,” he said, “you should rest.”

 

Will, too exhausted to be objectionable, a deep and somehow satisfying ache in his loins, nodded pliantly.

 

“I’ll be in your room,” he said.

 

After he’d gone, Hannibal took his time gathering up his medical supplies, meticulously cleaning that which could be re-used, and sealing what couldn’t inside a plastic pouch for disposal elsewhere. While it was unlikely that Jack would indefinitely believe that Will was dead (in fact, Hannibal strongly suspected that Will would prefer the opposite once they were safely away), he wouldn’t think it at all if there was evidence left behind that indicated Hannibal had ministered to his wounds. When everything had been tidied and arranged to his satisfaction, he turned off the lamp and carried his medical bag down the hall to his own room, where he found Will gloriously naked and sprawled on his belly, half under the sheets with one leg protruding and bent at the knee; he was a marblesque sculpture limned in muted moonlight from the window, and Hannibal, a keen aesthete at heart, had to stop and admire the sight for a moment. Will was snoring lightly; Dr. Lecter woke him up to drink a tall glass of cold orange juice, the outside beaded with condensation. He drained the glass thirstily, then fell asleep again directly afterwards, and Hannibal dressed quietly in the dim room, before heading outside to take care of the bodies of Will’s cousin and his unfortunate companion.

 

He took his time with the tableau before covering it with a tarpaulin he’d found folded up in the cab of the truck, to prevent the worst of the damage from foraging animals, and then went inside to indulge in the unaccustomed pleasure of sliding beneath the sheets toward Will’s slumbering warmth. Will, still mostly asleep, draped a bandaged arm across Hannibal’s chest and curled into his side.


	17. Chapter 17

Molly Foster had the day off from her job at Frank’s Supermarket, and she was enjoying it. She’d gotten Wally up and grousing his way through his morning routine, fed him eggs and toast and sent him off to the school bus, savoring the opportunity to catch up on her laundry and clean up the small but tidy house. First, coffee though; she poured herself a cup and settled at the kitchen counter to flip through a few catalogs while the news was on. Her attention divided between the latest Soft Surroundings catalog (nothing in there that she could afford really, but it didn’t hurt to look) and the very coiffured anchorman, she was only vaguely aware of the current story – something to do with the Russians tampering with the US election, during which she hadn’t bothered to vote purely because she found all the candidates unlikeable and shady.

 

She looked up from her catalog as the anchorman grimly announced that new information had surfaced in the hunt for serial killer Hannibal Lecter and the FBI profiler that he had apparently kidnapped after attempting to kill him in Florence. She had been peripherally aware of the story, but hadn’t paid a lot of attention to it aside from feeling sorry for the FBI agent in question, who was almost certainly dead by now, and his family who must be driving themselves crazy with worry. She watched with halfhearted interest as a security cam video from inside what was obviously a Wal-Mart started on the screen – then nearly spit out her coffee when she got a look at the missing profiler. The resemblance to the cute guy she’d given her number to the day before was uncanny. Surely it couldn’t have been him, though – the footage was not the best quality after all, and he’d said his name was Garrett. But still… just in case.

 

She picked up her cell phone and pulled up Google, searching for Hannibal Lecter and Will Graham, her brow furrowed with concern. At the top of the list of results was a website called Tattlecrime; they seemed to have the most articles, so she clicked the link. The images that came up, even on the small screen, were crystal clear – there was no doubt that the man she had met was Will Graham. Her heart felt like it was going to beat directly through her chest and perhaps explode; this sort of thing happened, she knew it did, but not to _her_ for God’s sake. That poor man, no wonder he’d been so taciturn – his kidnapper was probably waiting in the parking lot the entire time, having delivered dire threats before sending him inside for supplies. Of course he wouldn’t have come in himself – now that she’d seen Hannibal Lecter’s picture, it was obvious to her that he’d be far too recognizable to show his face in public any more than he absolutely had to. Maybe that was why he hadn’t killed Agent Graham yet.

 

If only she’d thought to look out the front door and see what the vehicle he got into looked like. He’d paid with cash, so there wouldn’t be anything at the store to trace them by. They were probably just passing through and were hundreds of miles away by now. Agent Graham might even be dead already. Dejected at her lack of what she considered to be any really useful information, she nevertheless scrolled through the page to find a telephone number to report what she’d seen.

 

Meanwhile, much closer than Molly would have guessed, Hannibal and Will sat across from each other in the dining room of their borrowed temporary home, having breakfast. Hannibal did not serve any part of the deceased couple currently occupying the bed of the truck outside the house; instead, he had made crêpes Suzette and despite his regret at the lack of Cointreau available, he was gratified to observe Will’s enthusiastic consumption of them. He’d already checked the stitches in Will’s wrists and changed his bandages; there was no sign of infection, and Will claimed that they didn’t hurt that much (what he had actually said was that compared to his ass they were just fine, which amused Hannibal quite a bit, despite the blunt vulgarity of the statement).

 

“So I guess this time, we’re going to have to be more careful,” said Will, swallowing a mouthful of coffee, “as in, with clothes on?”

 

“Regrettably, I don’t believe that it would be advantageous to the process to indulge today,” replied Hannibal, “tempting though it is.”

 

“I probably need a few days to recover anyway,” said Will, meeting Hannibal’s burgundy gaze with a wry half grin.

 

“Need I remind you that I didn’t do anything that was not at your request,” said Hannibal, piously arching a brow, “indeed, you were rather insistent.”

 

Will chuffed laughter through his nose and said,

 

“Don’t try and act like it was all for my benefit.”

 

“I wouldn’t dream of it. More crêpes?”

 

“Maybe one. So, if we’re doing this with clothes on, does that mean you’ll be wearing scrubs?” A rather hopeful expression crossed Will’s fine features.

 

“That would be the appropriate professional attire,” agreed Hannibal. Then, his look of subtle amusement shifted to a more solemn mien; on his severe features, it was a little ominous.

 

“Do you trust me, Will?” he inquired. Will regarded him in silence for a moment, and finally said,

 

“That’s … complicated.”

 

“Shortly, I’m going to extract approximately thirty percent of your blood. Your body has not yet fully replenished what you lost last night. You will enter hypovolemic shock and almost certainly lose consciousness. And then I’ll bring you back. I promise to bring you back, Will – and I always keep my promises.”

 

Will tilted his chin curiously and said,

 

“What would you do if I told you I changed my mind?”

 

“Are you asking whether I’d allow you to change your mind? If I’d bleed you to the brink of death with or without your consent?”

 

“Would you?”

 

“No, Will – wherever we go from here, it must be something that you choose.”

 

“Even if I choose not to go?”

 

Hannibal held Will’s gaze for a moment, a shadow crossing his features; he sighed then, nearly inaudibly, and said,

 

“Yes. Even if you choose to remain without me.”

 

The silence between them spun out for what felt like a long time. Finally, Will said,

 

“I still want to go with you. And yes – I know you’ll be literally holding my life in your hands while we do this. I want to do it anyway. Just – stay with me.”

 

Hannibal’s glacial mask softened visibly.

 

“Where else would I go?” he said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We all know what actually came up in Google when Molly searched for Hannibal Lecter/Will Graham ;D


	18. Chapter 18

QUANTICO, VA

11:35 AM

 

Molly’s call was one of many potential sightings of Will Graham; it was some time before the report reached Jack Crawford’s desk, and came amidst a stack of others, despite her insistence that there was no doubt whatsoever about whom she’d seen. It might have lingered further, except for two things: the name the suspected missing agent had given, and the location he’d been seen. An irate bellow brought one of the junior agents who’d been sorting the calls in on the run – in fact, he nearly tripped over a copy machine on the way, and everyone nearby cringed visibly.

 

“STRICKLAND!!!”

 

“Yessir!” said the younger agent, anxiously skidding to a halt on the other side of the daunting edifice of the section chief’s desk.

 

“Why was this not brought to me immediately?” snapped Jack, shoving the piece of paper with Molly’s information on it across the desk in Agent Strickland’s general direction. Strickland picked up the piece of paper, scanning it quickly.

 

“There didn’t seem to be anything unusual about it, sir,” he said, inwardly withering, “we’ve had similar calls from all over the country, especially the southeast after that surveillance footage was leaked.”

 

Jack stood, gesturing with abrupt jabs of one blunt finger against his other palm for emphasis.

 

“The alias, if it was one, was significant – Garrett. The serial killer that Will Graham shot to death - _Abigail Hobbs’_ father - was _Garrett_ Jacob Hobbs.” Strickland’s eyes widened a fraction but he wisely kept his mouth shut as Jack continued,

 

“The call came in from Louisiana – Agent Graham’s home state. We’re bumbling around looking in every dark corner except the obvious ones. For God’s sake man!! Get this Foster woman on the phone. I want to interview her myself. Find out whether any of Agent Graham’s family live in the surrounding area of Des Allemands – if so, get on the damn horn and find out whether they’ve seen him, with or without Hannibal Lecter.”

 

“Yessir… should I – “

 

“ _Do I have to tell you everything_??” shouted Jack, slamming a fist on the desk. Strickland fled. Jack stormed out of his office like the north wind to find Zeller and Price, and prepare for an immediate departure to Louisiana.

 

DES ALLEMANDS, LA

12:15 PM

 

Will, dressed comfortably in his boxer shorts and a plain white undershirt, was sitting on the edge of his bed watching Dr. Lecter make his preparations. He’d moved the coat rack from the foyer in to serve as a makeshift IV stand, and he was currently laying out his transfusion and donation kit; it was a field kit typically used by the military for emergency wound care. Will recognized most of the equipment presently occupying the dressing table; blood pressure monitor, donor collection bags, needles and tubing surgically sealed in plastic. However, most of his attention was occupied by watching Hannibal move around the room with the brisk efficiency of an expert in their natural environment; as promised, he did wear the blue scrubs he’d purloined from the hospital the day before, underneath the immaculate white lab coat, all of which he’d insisted on washing first thing after breakfast in case of any contamination from the hospital.

 

“How long will it take?” asked Will, his fingers toying a little anxiously with the sheets.

 

“Less than an hour to complete the collection,” replied Dr. Lecter, over his shoulder,

 

“The transfusion will take longer. As little as two hours, perhaps as long as four.”

 

“Are you just going to take blood the way it’d happen if I were donating?” inquired Will, more to keep his mind off the things Hannibal could be doing to him that did not involve needing a transfusion afterwards. That damned lab coat.

 

“More or less,” said Hannibal, rather obliquely, “now, please lie down and make yourself comfortable.”

 

“Should I be under the covers?”

 

“Yes – you’ll experience a chill when you begin to lose a large volume of blood.”

 

Without further comment, Will slid under the sheets and blanket and reclined upon the pile of pillows that Hannibal had arranged to simulate a hospital bed. It was surprisingly comfortable. He looked sidelong at Hannibal and said wryly,

 

“I feel like I’m in a kinky porno. Are you going to dope me up and take advantage of me?”

 

“There will not be medication involved,” said Hannibal, straight faced, making Will’s cock twitch involuntarily and a grunt of surprised amusement part his lips.

 

He tugged on surgical gloves and retrieved the alcohol and cotton balls from the dresser, and carefully cleaned Will’s forearms above his bandages, paying particular attention to the triangular pit of his inner elbow where he’d be drawing blood. Once that was completed to his satisfaction, he tossed the used cotton balls into the trash can he’d brought in for convenience, and retrieved a blue rubber tourniquet.

 

QUANTICO, VA

2:28 PM

 

“Oh,” said Agent Strickland.

 

“Oh?” replied a young female agent, brows raising over her dark brown eyes, “cause I sure hope that means you found something useful. Crawford was all over your ass earlier about that call from Louisiana.”

 

“I wasn’t the only one working these damn things,” grumbled Strickland, “anyway, I _have_ found something, Mapp. I don’t know if it will mean anything but I need to get Agent Crawford on the phone, god forbid I don’t give him every tiny bit of info.”

 

“What is it?”

 

“Graham – he’s got a cousin in Baton Rouge but nobody can get in touch with him. Robert Shiloh Graham. He’s got two listed addresses though, one in Baton Rouge that’s where most of his mail goes, and another where his truck is registered, and get this, it’s in Des Allemands.”

 

“Well shit – that doesn’t sound like a tiny bit of info, that sounds like you better move on it right now.”

 

“You know what it sounds like to me though? If Graham really is in Louisiana, is Lecter even with him anymore? I don’t know. This doesn’t make any sense. I’d have thought they’d be out of the country by now. I don’t think this is anything.”

 

“Better not take any chances.”

 

“Who are _you_ telling?”

 

 


	19. Chapter 19

DES ALLEMANDS, LA

1:00 PM

 

Will, lying upon his dampened sheets, shivered lightly and continuously under Hannibal’s reflective gaze, at once chilled to the bone and sweating profusely, as though caught in a nightmare. Dr. Lecter, having had a great deal of experience in venipuncture for various reasons, some perfectly legitimate and others much less so, was reminded unexpectedly of one of the images from the Luttrell Psalter; amongst the vividly depicted and often bizarre scenes of fourteenth century life (interspersed with detailed hybrid animals that delighted Dr. Lecter), an early grim faced phlebotomist draining blood from a suffering child directly into a wooden bowl. He wondered what alien creatures stalked Will’s dreams as the younger man slipped from consciousness, his already pale skin gradually gaining the white luminescence of moonlit porcelain.

 

The process was not a slow one in particular; as Hannibal had promised, the life was slipping from Will’s veins rapidly into the two non-standard collection bags filling beside him. It had merely taken the smooth, clean entry of a 16-gauge needle in each arm and a modest amount of time to arrange everything to Dr. Lecter’s satisfaction, including Will himself. Hannibal glanced up at Will’s face as his breath began to come in shallow, quick gasps with little strength behind them. Using the cuff he’d left around Will’s left upper arm, he checked his rapidly dropping blood pressure. If he chose to walk away now, Will would slip into death within five minutes; he was too far gone to recover without immediate medical intervention. Hannibal remembered another moment in time, another person he could have chosen to allow to die, as she had wished, or intervened to prevent nature from taking its course. He had unhurriedly flipped a coin to make the decision. In his mind’s eye, the coin arced smoothly, spinning out into darkness as Bella’s fate was decided by nothing more than random chance and Dr. Lecter’s whim. Jack had thanked him for it so sincerely.

 

Will was not Jack’s. Will was _his_.

 

Hannibal removed the needles from Will’s arms with economic efficiency, tying tourniquets off temporarily as he prepared the transfusion.

 

BATON ROUGE AIRPORT, LA

 

2:30 PM

 

Jack Crawford and his team were already on the ground, preparing for the nearly two hour drive to Des Allemands to interview Molly Foster, when the call came in from Agent Strickland that he’d located a relative of Will Graham, and the two addresses that belonged to him. No sooner had he hung up with Strickland, Jack turned toward Zeller, Price and the two other agents he’d brought along, Diaz and Lane.

 

“Change of plan,” he said, briskly, “Robert Shiloh Graham – Will’s cousin. Two local addresses – one just outside Baton Rouge, maybe twenty minutes away, one in Des Allemands, where the Foster woman reported seeing Will.

 

Zeller, Diaz, you’re here in Baton Rouge. That’s Robert Graham’s primary address, utility bills go there, so it’s the more likely location to find him, whether Will and Lecter are there or not. Round up BRPD for backup - SWAT gear is SOP, in case Lecter is there. If not, I want the cousin brought in for questioning.

 

Price, Lane – you’re coming with me to Des Allemands; we’ll interview Foster – but first, get on the phone and get a local squad car to run by the address the cousin’s truck is registered to. If there are any unfamiliar vehicles or anything seems amiss, have them wait for SWAT backup.”

 

Agent Daphne Lane, a sturdy, no-nonsense woman with already graying dark hair tied severely back, said,

 

“Agent Crawford, if they’re hiding out with Agent Graham’s relative, doesn’t that mean that they both need to be considered a threat?”

 

Jack, his features stony, said,

 

“They need to be considered whatever the situation dictates, Agent. There are any number of scenarios here. Chances are slim that we’ll find anything besides Will’s cousin, who won’t know a damn thing. We will follow the lead, and we will watch our asses. And maybe we’ll save Agent Graham’s life. Am I clear?”

 

“Sir,” she replied crisply, inclining her head in acknowledgment. Price shot a worried look in Zeller’s direction.

 

As Crawford, Price and Lane made their way through the terminal to meet their driver, Agent Lane used her cell phone to look up the number for the Des Allemands Police Department; to her displeasure, the closest law enforcement agency was the St. Charles Parish Sheriff’s Office, twelve miles outside of Des Allemands.

 

“Fucking Podunk USA,” she muttered under her breath, dialing the number.


	20. Chapter 20

After he was satisfied that the transfusion was going as planned, Dr. Lecter carried the two full bags of Will’s blood out of the room they’d shared and down the hall to the master bedroom; he would have preferred for Will to participate in the staging of his death, but the blood would have significantly coagulated by the time Will was in any shape to get out of bed, and he couldn’t afford to have added an anti-coagulant agent because FBI laboratory testing would have detected it. The bed was covered in dried blood from the night before; smears of it covered nearly every surface, and there was a distinct print on the wall above the bed where he’d pinned Will’s bleeding wrists, streaks of blood pouring down beneath it like paint, and beside it, what was certainly his own handprint. He found it distasteful that the story they were telling would undoubtedly paint him as a sexual predator as well as a murderer, but he also did not believe that this was the last chapter they’d leave to be read. He had allowed Will the choice, and he had made it for them both.

 

Considering the room with the eyes of both an aesthete and a surgeon, Dr. Lecter placed one of the collection bags on the dressing table and picked up a scalpel in one gloved hand. Squeezing the collection bag in the other until he judged the pressure close enough to that of an unexpected exsanguination, he paused briefly to enjoy the warmth of Will’s blood in his fist, and then plunged the scalpel through the tough plastic surface; when he yanked it free, a thick arc of blood was released like an arterial spray across the wall. With calculated precision, he moved the collection bag downward to simulate a fall, and then let it empty onto the floor beside the wall, before moving on to the next bag. When about half of it was emptied, he carried it through the house toward the front door, deliberately allowing dark red drops to fall thick and viscous onto the floor and not being mindful of stepping in the gore; he paused to fill his hand with blood before opening the door and continuing the trail out into the yard, ending where he could have presumably loaded Will’s body into a vehicle.

 

Afterwards, all of the medical equipment that he’d used to collect the blood and distribute it went into a sealed plastic bag in his suitcase, and then Hannibal settled quietly in the armchair in the bedroom beside Will’s motionless form, not reading or occupying himself with anything aside from watching the color gradually seep back into the younger man’s deathly pale skin as the purloined blood entered his veins. Dr. Lecter pictured a glowing, vivid red creeping into Will’s body, bursting through his basilic vein with the stain of fresh berries and ascending, faster and warmer, a crimson stream breaking into the larger passageway of the brachial vein, and sending bright ruby fireflies flickering along the smaller veins branching away, sparking capillaries alight until Will’s entire body glowed from within, illuminated by stolen life. Not for the first time, he wished that he had brought a sketchbook. It would keep, though; perhaps a more colorful media than pencil was required to capture this moment at any rate.

 

Then, Will opened his eyes, and Hannibal forgot about immortalizing his rebirth – at least for the moment. Disoriented, the profiler began to sit up and was pushed back gently but firmly with Dr. Lecter’s warm hand in the center of his chest.

 

“Not yet, Will. How are you feeling?” Will winced a little and said,

 

“Dizzy. What did you do with the blood?”

 

“You are quite thoroughly deceased,” replied Hannibal, standing to check his pulse with two fingers pressed firmly against the cool skin of Will’s inner wrist.

 

“Can I see it?”

 

“Of course. You should be able to move around in half an hour or so.”

 

As Hannibal was checking Will’s vitals, a patrol car from the Sheriff’s Office turned into the driveway, bearing a deputy who’d lived in Des Allemands his entire life, and hadn’t really been too impressed with the FBI showing up and throwing their weight around. However, he’d been sent out on this errand because he was an acquaintance of Bobby Graham and knew exactly where the house was – he also knew that sometimes Bobby liked to bring girls out there when he managed pick up one that wouldn’t be any too impressed with his old trailer up in Baton Rouge. So, when he spotted the old Dodge truck in the driveway, he initially didn’t think much of it.

 

Pushing the button, he spoke into his radio.

 

“Base, this is unit two, do you copy?”

 

“Copy, unit two – what’s your status?”

 

“I’m out here off of Old Spanish Trail on that fly-by for the fibbies. Got a Dodge truck here, license plate Victor-Whiskey-Foxtrot-Niner-Six-Seven. You may as well run it but I know it’s Bobby Graham’s.”

 

“Copy – anything suspicious out there?”

 

“Negative – just gonna do a quick welfare check and head on back.”

 

“Roger that unit two. Over and out.”

 

Deputy Bernard got out of his patrol car, hitching up his Sam Browne belt a bit, and began to cross the yard; the first thing he spotted was a pair of women’s stiletto shoes on the porch and a grin began to form on his lips that promptly died as he saw the trail of fresh blood leading up the steps. Before he could so much as move to report his findings or draw his duty weapon, the butt of a shotgun crashed behind his left ear and he dropped like a stone.

 

Dr. Lecter put the shotgun down casually on the hood of the truck he’d been concealed behind, Deputy Bernard’s blood decorating the front of his lab coat, and looked down in assessment at the unconscious officer, his eyes hooded and cold as a shark’s, irises the color of claret in the cloudy afternoon light. He considered flipping a coin.


	21. Chapter 21

When Hannibal came back inside carrying the unconscious body of Deputy Bernard over his shoulder as though he weighed no more than a sack of potatoes, Will sat straight up, despite Dr. Lecter’s instructions to remain lying down. His head swam unpleasantly and his heart was racing.

 

“Cops?” he exclaimed.

 

“Only this one,” replied Hannibal, quite calmly, “but I expect others will follow when he does not return shortly.”

 

Will tilted his head a bit, trying to get a look at the deputy’s face under the blood-sticky fall of hair.

 

“Is he dead?”

 

“Not yet. Merely unconscious.”

 

Will swung his feet over the side of the bed, gritting his teeth against the wave of vertigo that swept over him.

 

“We have to go, Hannibal. Right now.”

 

“Leave your IV alone – give me a moment to attend to our unexpected guest, please.”

 

Will reluctantly remained where he was, his arm tethered to the transfusion IV, and tried to quell the panic that threatened. He’d known when he had chosen this place that they could be found, but it never seemed like a real risk – and he would never have anticipated it being so soon. His head spun, and he ran a hand distractedly back through his unruly curls.

 

Hannibal meanwhile, had used the deputy’s own handcuffs to secure his hands behind his back, and then hoisted him into the armchair, using a length of sturdy rubber tubing to efficiently tie his ankles to the short legs of the chair. He unclipped the mic from the front of his uniform blouse, and divested him of his other equipment by simply unbuckling and removing the utility belt that held his taser, firearm, extra magazines and mace; also, a folding knife from his front pocket. He tossed these items onto the bed beside Will, and went to his medical bag nearby, swiftly opening a case containing several hypodermic needles and filling one from a glass vial of clear fluid.

 

“What are you doing?” inquired Will, his tone strained and anxious.

 

“Aren’t you curious to know why local law enforcement has decided to pay us a visit today?”

 

“Yes – _yes_. If they knew we were here, SWAT would be breaking down the door right now. But we _need_ to hurry.”

 

Hannibal paused, a hypodermic needle in one hand, and turned toward Will, his maroon gaze searching his face for a moment.

 

“For someone who deliberately chose a known location, Will, you seem very distressed at the idea of being found,” he said. Will glared at him and said, defensively,

 

“A lot has happened since then.”

 

“Have you found out what you wanted to know, then?” inquired Hannibal, closing the distance between them to cup Will’s jaw with his free hand; his thumb brushed over the plush smoothness of Will’s bottom lip, making the profiler shiver involuntarily. Will leaned into the touch, the warmth of Hannibal’s capable surgeon’s hand soothing despite all of its capacity for harm.

 

“Not exactly,” murmured Will, “more like found out that I already knew.”

 

Deputy Bernard groaned a little and twitched. Dr. Lecter turned toward him, leaving Will with a lingering caress and tucking one of his wayward curls behind his ear. As much as he loved the stubborn fire in Will, he found him utterly charming when he was dazed and pliant. Malleable in a way that he rarely was. With casual precision, Hannibal slipped the needle into the side of the deputy’s neck and depressed the plunger. His eyes flew open immediately; galvanized with fear, he pulled at the cuffs around his wrists until they cut into the skin, gasping and shuddering.

 

“What did you give him?” asked Will, curiously.

 

“Only a stimulant to wake him. As you so eloquently pointed out, we haven’t the luxury of waiting for him to wake up on his own.” Hannibal capped the needle and put it down on the nightstand, before turning back toward Deputy Bernard and grasping him firmly by the jaw, forcing his head still with brutal efficiency. Bernard stared up at him, his brown eyes wide enough to show white around the irises.

 

“Oh god, you’re him,” he whimpered, “please – I have kids, I won’t tell nobody, just – “

 

“Please be quiet,” said Hannibal sternly, glancing down at his name tag, before adding, “Deputy Bernard.”

 

“But I – “

 

“If you don’t shut up, you’re really going to wish you had,” interrupted Will conversationally, from the bed. Bernard looked past Hannibal and stared at Will in shock, taking in the IV stand and the tubing conveying blood into his vein. Surprised into compliance, the deputy followed orders and stopped speaking.

 

“I wish to ask some questions,” said Hannibal, calmly, “you will answer them truthfully, or I will be forced to remove a piece of you for each lie that passes your lips. And I _will_ know if you lie.”

 

“Yeah – sure – what do you want to know?” said Bernard quickly, shuddering visibly at the blunt threat.

 

“Why did you come to this house today?”

 

“I got sent out to check on the place.”

 

“By whom? What were you looking for?”

 

“The sheriff – it was supposed to just be a quick look to see if anyone was here, or cars or whatever.”

 

“And why did you choose to stop and get out of your car? That was beyond the requirements of your task, was it not?”

 

“I recognized the truck,” he said, pale beneath the lingering remnants of his summer tan, “Bobby Graham’s truck. What have you done with him? He’s dead ain’t he, oh god.”

 

“You persist in mentioning God,” said Hannibal, placidly, “I don’t think he’ll be along to help, do you? Now – why would the sheriff think that this house would be occupied, and by whom?”

 

“These agents from the FBI called and asked him to send a car out,” said Bernard, miserably, “and that if anything looked funny, to come back to base, they were gonna send out a SWAT team I guess, they’re looking for you – the both of you.”

 

Will shot Hannibal a look of pure concern.

 

“Only a moment longer, Will,” replied Dr. Lecter, then turned back to Bernard and said, “where are these FBI agents now?”

 

“In town, not far I guess. They went to interview the gal that recognized y’all at the store and called the hotline. Can I go now? I’ve told the truth about everything – honest to god!”

 

“Yes, I know. Thank you, Deputy.” With that, he picked up the pocket knife from the bedspread and flicked it open; in a single, swift motion, he plunged it through Deputy Bernard’s right eye and into his brain, killing him instantly. Will watched with a furrowed brow; if Hannibal hadn’t killed him, he would have been forced to do it himself. A dark part of him wished he had.

 

“Jack – here, in town,” said Will, “goddamnit.” Hannibal slid the IV from Will’s arm smoothly, and handed him a piece of cotton to hold over the small wound it left behind.

 

“While you get dressed, I’ll load the car,” said Hannibal, ever practical. He quickly gathered up everything that had been used for the transfusion; all of it went into a sealed plastic bag inside his suitcase for later destruction; while he was doing this, Will tugged on a dark gray sweatshirt and jeans, trying to ignore the persistent dizziness, then picked up the deceased deputy’s service Glock, tucking it into the back waistband of his jeans before gathering up the extra mags. Hannibal took their cases out and loaded them into the Land Rover, then came back inside to move the coat rack back into the front foyer and retrieve Bobby’s shotgun.

 

He found Will in the back bedroom, standing perfectly still in the doorway as his ocean green gaze crawled slowly and reverently over the abattoir that the room had become. The stench of blood was overwhelming.

 

“Is it what you hoped for, Will?” asked Hannibal, from just behind his shoulder. The former profiler was silent for a moment, and then said, into the quiet,

 

“Oh yes.”


	22. Chapter 22

Deputy Bernard’s disappearance was noted only ten minutes after Will and Hannibal had left in the Land Rover, when dispatch hadn’t been able to raise him on the radio. Having been informed just as he was wrapping up his interview with Molly Foster, Jack Crawford had been on the phone with Lafourche Parish PD immediately, barking out orders as he strode out the door with Price and Agent Lane hurrying to keep up, and a parade of police cruisers was flying up US-90 within minutes.

 

By the time Brian Zeller and Mark Diaz arrived from Baton Rouge an hour later, SWAT had already cleared the scene and local law enforcement were swarming around the property, many of them looking ill and shaken; several K-9s were assisting with the search, but had succeeded so far only in locating the bodies of Bobby Graham and his unfortunate date wrapped in the tarpaulin in the bed of the truck. They had been left _in situ_ for the BAU techs, given the arrangement of the bodies; the officer who’d seen them first had seen plenty of roadside carnage and poker game shootings, but the sight of those two corpses would give him nightmares for weeks. Roadblocks were already in place on every road leading out of Des Allemands, and police were on their way to begin canvasing all of the local hotels, motels and bed and breakfasts in a twenty mile radius, dispatched promptly by Jack Crawford when the house had been declared empty of anyone living.

 

Zeller found Crawford standing in the doorway of the ruined bedroom where Jimmy Price was currently working on lifting prints and collecting blood samples, the endless tagging and bagging of a crime scene. The normally imposing BAU Chief’s face twisted briefly with such a potent mixture of fury and anguish that Zeller couldn’t look at him for a moment. Then, without a word, he turned and stalked past Zeller and disappeared down the bloody hallway. Brian’s gray-blue eyes traveled over the blood soaked room with rising horror; he met Price’s gaze, who looked unusually grim.

 

“Is there … a body?” he asked, at length.

 

“Sure there is,” said Price, looking back down at his work, “Sheriff’s Deputy Mike Bernard. Front bedroom. Stabbed to death with a pocket knife through the right eye. Coroner’s office is taking care of him. Robert “Bobby” Graham and Candace Hilliard, in the bed of the Dodge outside – someone took him out with a shotgun to the head at close range; we’d have had to find all his teeth to identify him if he didn’t have his wallet on him. Girl’s neck was broken. You’re gonna want to check them out - they’re one for the scrapbook.”

 

“You know what I mean. Did – is Will here? Jesus.”

 

“Most of his blood is, or at least it looks that way,” replied Price, using a magnifying glass and flashlight to perform a quick preliminary set of print compares,

 

“It’s the right type, but we haven’t got the DNA match back yet from CODIS to confirm. Whether it’s Will’s or not, whoever it belonged to is definitely dead as a doornail. There’s at least four units there. No body though – god knows what he did with it.”

 

“He’s a goddamned cannibal, what do you _think_ he’s doing with it?” said Zeller with a grimace, moving into the room and scrutinizing the pools of drying blood on the hardwood floor,

 

“This is still fresh, most of it. whatever happened, it wasn’t long ago.”

 

“It’s not so much _what_ happened – that’s pretty apparent, as fucked up as it is – it’s more like _who_ happened.”

 

“Lecter,” said Zeller, flatly.

 

“Yep. That’s his handprint on the wall there over the bed. Here, too. Will’s prints are those in the middle – you see where the blood’s dry here? Looks about a day old.”

 

“So the son of a bitch tortured him for a day before he cut his throat?” Anger colored Zeller’s tone. Price looked up and met his gaze.

 

“What’s all of that on the bed look like to you? The blood patterns, all of it?” Zeller forced himself to view the scene as a professional forensic investigator instead of a man who’d lost a colleague he’d worked closely with for years. His eyes narrowed and he sucked in an audible breath through his nostrils involuntarily, then wished he hadn’t as the stench of blood overwhelmed him along with the mental picture that his forensic training relentlessly supplied his imagination with.

 

“That’s semen there, isn’t it?” he said, at length.

 

“Yep.”

 

“Lecter’s handprint and the blood at the head of the bed – he was bracing himself with one hand and holding Will’s wrists with the other; the blood must have come from there, he was bleeding heavily. Maybe restrained as well, he’d have fought. The posture suggests – the _bastard_. He’d better hope to whatever god he prays to that I don’t catch him.“

 

“Rape was never part of Dr. Lecter’s pathology,” said Price, contemplatively, “it could have been consensual.”

 

“You don’t seriously think that Will would have jumped into bed with the asshole that tried to eat his brains in Florence,” said Zeller, with a scowl, “besides, in case you forgot, Will is _straight_.”

 

“Honestly Zee, you should get out more. When did you ever see him with a girlfriend? Anyway, there’s no way to know what was going through Will’s head… ever, pretty much.”

 

“So maybe it was consensual… with a potentially critical wound going on?” Zeller’s tone was rather incredulous.

 

“Do you see all of this blood on the bed?”

 

“I’m just saying it’s _possible_.”

 

“How is Jack handling all of it?” said Brian, after a pause, “does he know about…?” He waved a hand in the general direction of the bed.

 

“Jack … yeah, not good. He isn’t saying much, and that by itself is pretty terrifying.”

 

“ZELLER!!” A familiar voice boomed down the hallway.

 

“Speak of the devil,” muttered Brian, turning and hurrying out of the room and down the hall to where Crawford waited for him on the front porch.

 

“I need you working this scene,” said Jack, gruffly, gesturing toward the truck currently standing in the middle of a rough circle of crime scene tape looped around three trees and one of the columns of the front porch. His spine remained ramrod straight despite the awful knowledge of failure in his dark eyes.

 

“I’ll send Diaz in to assist Price with the primary crime scene.”

 

“Yessir,” said Zeller, “let me just grab my gear out of the truck.”

 

“We are going to stop this man,” said Jack, in a low growl, “and I want plenty of evidence when we do. We got here right on Lecter’s heels, he’s not getting out of the area.”

 

Zeller paused and then said, hesitantly,

 

“We still don’t know for sure that all that blood is Will’s – he could be alive.” Crawford leveled a look at him and said curtly,

 

“Don’t hold out much hope for that.”


	23. Chapter 23

The speed and efficiency with which Jack Crawford had directed roadblocks on every road leading out of the area meant that state troopers and local police were waiting to check ID in a twenty mile perimeter; thanks to Lafourche Parish PD, no small back roads were neglected either. In the passenger seat of the Land Rover, Will looked sidelong at Hannibal, his features set and tense.

 

“You know we are going to get caught, right?” he said, bitterly, “they’ll have every road blocked off, and it’s not like we won’t be recognized.”

 

Hannibal, placid and calm as ever, settled a warm palm over Will’s tense thigh.

 

“You know Will, you worry too much,” he said. Will scowled at him but didn’t move away.

 

“I’m not sure what constitutes ‘too much’ in our current situation,” he muttered, grimly, “who’d have guessed that the Chesapeake Ripper was such a damned optimist?”

 

“Optimism indicates that we’re relying on luck,” observed Hannibal, “which I prefer to avoid whenever possible.”

 

“You mean to say that you actually have a plan?” Will paused and then internally rolled his eyes and added,

 

“Of course you have a plan.”

 

Hannibal offered a faint, catlike smile and said nothing.

 

“I guess I don’t get to choose the next plan,” said Will, dryly.

 

“Not unless you’ve got an excellent one,” replied Hannibal, mildly amused, “I believe these arrangements will suit for now.” The tensed muscle of Will’s thigh relaxed a fraction under his hand and the former profiler sighed quietly in unspoken acceptance.

 

They were no more than ten miles from the house – just as Crawford was surveying the crime scene they’d left behind –  when he turned the Land Rover off the road next to a weathered, hand painted sign reading,

 

PERRY’S BAYOU SIGHTSEEING – CLOSED FOR THE WINTER           

 

Hoisting a brow in Dr. Lecter’s direction, Will absently brushed the bandage around his left wrist and then looked to survey their surroundings. The dirt trail was muddy and overgrown; he winced a little as the jostling set spikes of pain in his injured wrists and abused muscles. Beyond a thickly forested drive-up, they first passed an empty, boarded up shack with signs advertising “Gift Shop! Bait! Boiled P-nuts!”; past this, more tupelos and a canopy of Spanish moss, and then a low roofed house in moderate disrepair that was obviously occupied. They could see a glimpse of a television set through the broken blinds, and a shadow passed the window; when Dr. Lecter parked the Land Rover next to the truck that already occupied the driveway, what sounded like an extremely large dog began barking. Apparently unperturbed, Hannibal got out of the vehicle and headed toward the front steps; he had changed out of his soiled lab coat and scrubs, and was wearing something very much like Will would have chosen for himself – a dark jacket over a t-shirt and jeans. Will, to his chagrin, couldn’t help noticing how impressive his firm rear looked in them as he walked away.

 

The screen door opened before Hannibal reached the porch; the man that emerged from inside was in his mid-fifties, not tall, but well built. His red and black plaid shirt was spotted with paint, and he looked like he hadn’t shaved in a few days. His weathered features were square with a hawk like nose, and a sly intelligence in his green eyes.

 

“Was wondering if you’d show up,” he drawled, “police scanner’s been goin’ crazy today.”

 

“I imagine it has,” replied Hannibal, “may I assume that our deal still stands?”

 

“Damn right. I don’t give a shit what you boys have been up to for that kind of payday. But I’m gonna need that cash up front – you understand.”

 

“Of course,” said Dr. Lecter, as Will joined him, hands shoved in the pockets of his jacket. Just then, the screen door popped open again and a massive fawn dog burst through it; she weighed well over a hundred pounds, her black muzzle streaked with gray. A warning woof boomed through the yard.

 

“Don’t mind Daisy,” said their host, “she don’t bite unless you try and take her food bowl.” The large mastiff was sniffing around Will’s crotch with great interest by this time, leaving a fair bit of slobber in her wake. Will, who didn’t mind at all, having missed his own dogs a great deal, scratched behind her ears.

 

“Hi there Daisy,” he said, softly. Hannibal reached inside his jacket and produced a thick envelope, which he passed over to the man in front of them. It was accepted quickly, with a peek inside and a nod.

 

“Runway’s over there past them trees. I’ll need to grab a couple things, meet you there in a few minutes,” he said.

 

“We’ll wait for you,” said Will, narrowly. Hannibal gave him a sidelong look of approval as the profiler made a point of resting a hand on the pistol in the back of his waistband. The man’s eyes widened a fraction and then narrowed again with a faint grin.

 

“Fair enough. Come on in.”

 

Daisy followed all three of them inside, panting; the inside of the modest home was decorated in a style familiar to Will: Country Engine-Part Chic. Hannibal prowled around behind their host in a menacing enough fashion that he kept glancing nervously over his shoulder while gathering up his wallet; when he picked up his cell phone from the charger, Dr. Lecter reached over and plucked it out of his hand.

 

“You won’t need that, Mr. Perry. Will you?”

 

Perry looked as though he wanted to object, but didn’t quite dare; perhaps he saw something in Hannibal’s face that cautioned him against it.

 

“Guess not,” he grumbled, “you sure are an untrusting pair.”

 

Daisy sat on the back porch and barked at the old Cessna 172 climbing above the tree line into the late afternoon sky until it was out of earshot.

 

*

 

Long after the green of the bayou fell away below Will and Hannibal, Jack Crawford was pacing back and forth across the wide front porch of the house they had left behind, the intensity of his frustration threatening to burn a hole through his chest. Every road out of town had been barricaded for hours, causing traffic backups for miles; the State troopers were about to call it off on the premise that if they were driving, they’d already slipped through the net. Given the accessibility of waterways in the area, local marinas had been searched, boat owners questioned; nobody had seen anything. Law enforcement was trawling the local bayous, but it didn’t look promising.

 

“He’s gone to ground somewhere,” growled Jack, “has to have. There’s no way he’s gotten through.”

 

Zeller shot him a sympathetic look that produced a deep responding scowl.

 

“Even if he has, every cop in the state is on the lookout,” he snapped, “we’ll catch him.” Price came around the corner on the phone, one hand in the pocket of his lab coat. He hung up as he approached Crawford, and the news he carried with him was written in the defeated lines of his features before he said it.

 

“Preliminary DNA is complete. The blood is Will’s.” Crawford closed his eyes briefly, his mouth tightening. Without looking up, he said,

 

“And the rest? Lecter?”

 

“Uh… yeah but not all of it,” said Price, “some of the semen is Will’s too.” Zeller opened his mouth and then closed it again, before saying,

 

“Well, that still doesn’t mean – “

 

“The scene in the truck?” said Jack, gruffly, changing the subject curtly.

 

“The significance of it is still undetermined,” said Zeller, relieved at the change of topic, “but it was definitely arranged. Knowing Lecter, probably something symbolic that – damn it, I wish we had Will to figure out. Almost buttoned up now, the coroner can have them in about an hour.”

 

It took every ounce of willpower that Jack possessed not to put his fist through the nearest wall. Face set, he stalked away down the steps into the darkened front yard, lit here and there by kliegs like spotlights on a gruesome stage. At the edge of the road, news media vans were parked; the reporters, not having been permitted any closer to the crime scene, circled the perimeter under lights and cameras like predatory fireflies. The news traveled quickly once the name Hannibal Lecter was leaked; it was hard to keep secrets in a small town police department and this one was no different. The fanfare inevitably brought Freddie Lounds, the way a wounded antelope lures a hyena.


	24. Chapter 24

LUBBOCK, TX

 

Will stood beside the rusted hangar at the small airstrip where they’d landed, and watched the old Cessna climb back into the sky, circling back toward Louisiana. The single runway was well lit, but there was a conveniently shadowy parking lot beyond the hangar; Hannibal was striding in that direction with his usual tireless prowl, and after a moment, Will followed him, picking up the pace to catch up. Gravel crunched under their feet, but the lot was deserted except for a VW that looked like it had rolled off the line around the time Nixon resigned, two trucks, and a black middle-of-the-road sedan with tinted windows; sporty enough for the soccer mom crowd but nothing too extravagant. Will identified it with a squint as a newish Kia Optima. Dr. Lecter opened the gas door and a set of keys fell out neatly into his palm.

 

“Chiyoh again?” inquired Will, with a half-smile despite his current discomfort and injuries. He didn’t know when Hannibal had contacted her, but he supposed he’d had ample opportunity while planning their inevitably necessary escape. He studied Dr. Lecter’s profile in the dim light; silhouetted by the distant city lights of Lubbock a few miles away and the scant sliver of moonlight, his clean jawline and sharp cheekbones looked like a severe sculpture in marble. Then the monster turned toward him and returned the half smile, a hint of warmth in his eyes that glinted redly in his irises.

 

“Yes,” he said, simply. He used the keys to open the trunk and began loading their bags inside; his medical kit, both of their luggage, and the case containing Lady Murasaki’s priceless swords. Will watched him in silence, but made no move to help; the past twenty four hours had taken a toll on him and he was pale and exhausted, weary to the marrow and aching in every muscle. Hannibal never seemed like he needed any assistance with anything anyway; Will had seen him move bodies as though they weighed nothing – Dr. Lecter was perpetually stronger, faster and more brutally efficient than anyone he’d ever met. Watching him now was unnerving yet simultaneously drove a spike of lust down Will’s spine, even in his current condition. Hannibal closed the trunk and turned to face Will, his claret colored eyes drifting over the younger man’s face with an analytical expression.

 

“You should try to sleep,” he said, “we’ll be on the road for a while.”

 

Will nodded and went to the passenger side, getting into the car with a wince at the ache in his nether regions as he sat down. Hannibal slid behind the driver’s wheel, leaned across and nuzzled into the side of Will’s neck; the warmth of him provoked a low pitched noise of pleasure from Will, who turned his head a bit to expose more of the tender skin. Hannibal ran a fingertip gently over the healing line of stitches across Will’s jaw; he spoke against his skin and the movement of his lips sent an electrical shiver down Will’s spine.

 

“When we’ve arrived and settled in, I will remove these for you,” he said, his voice a low rumble in the shell of Will’s ear, “and look after you properly. Would you like that?”

 

“Where are we going?” breathed Will, shifting slightly at the sudden tightness in his groin.

 

“There’s a secluded house, near Santa Rosa,” said Hannibal, running his fingertips down the appealing slope of Will’s vulnerable throat as his thumb lingered over his pulse, “in New Mexico. It is ours for as long as we require it.”

 

“I’ve never even heard of Santa Rosa,” said Will, who was having a difficult time focusing and had temporarily almost forgotten how exhausted and hurt he was.

 

“It is an anomaly – natural lakes spring from the rocks and sand. A suitable place to heal.” Will turned to face him then, seeking his mouth and finding it, warm and inviting. Sharp canines sheathed safely behind pliant lips for now, Hannibal slid his hand behind Will’s neck, tangling lethal fingers into the dark curls at his nape as they kissed, a heated exploration that hinted at the depths of what they’d already shared, would continue to share. After a few moments that left Will breathless and _wanting_ , Dr. Lecter drew back and exhaled a long breath that held a shuddering undertone, so subtle that few would have caught it; Will did, however, and if he hadn’t been so damn tired, he’d have been in Hannibal’s lap.

 

“We’ll be there in about three and a half hours,” said Dr. Lecter, after a nearly imperceptible pause in which he deliberately slowed his heart rate to a more sedate pace.

 

“Rest, Will.”

 

DES ALLEMANDS, LA

 

After another grueling hour, Jack Crawford had finally given the nod for the local coroner’s office to remove the bodies from the bed of the truck; unfortunately, they had not succeeded in doing it before Freddie Lounds had bribed her way onto the crime scene (ruining her shoes in the process but considering it completely worthwhile) and taken a copious number of pictures of the gruesome scene. The local deputy who took her $500 for looking the other way wandered off so that he could claim ignorance later when the pictures were published. The local news reporters had been giving a running commentary on what they had been able to glean from the edge of the scene and paid informants, and every police department within a fifty mile radius was on high alert.

 

Crawford finally consented to say a few words to the press around five am. He looked exhausted under the spotlights, his eyes shadowed with grief and fatigue, but remained as stoic as ever. Refusing to be swayed from the facts by the speculations being shouted at him, he paused only when he spotted a familiar mane of curly red hair.

 

“How long before police arrived was Will Graham murdered?” asked Freddie, in the sweetly cutting tone that always found its mark, “you and the FBI were already in the area, weren’t you?”

 

Jack stared her in the eyes with a tensed jaw for a second before replying,

 

“The time of death has not been determined, Miss Lounds.”

 

“How does it feel to have missed him by so little?” Freddie was undeterred by Crawford’s intimidating demeanor, but unfortunately for her, another reporter impatiently inquired as to the danger to the surrounding community. Finding this question slightly more palatable, Jack ignored Freddie pointedly and went on to warn the viewers that Hannibal Lecter could very well still be in the area and that he was considered armed and extremely dangerous, and should not be engaged by anyone if they were to spot him.


	25. Chapter 25

Will woke up squinting into the late afternoon sunlight streaming in through the window; it was hard, desert sunlight, and the filmy drapes did little to filter its strength. His muscles were aching, wrists throbbing, but he felt quite a bit better than he had before he’d fallen asleep in the car. The surroundings were unfamiliar; he was lying in a big bed, underneath what felt like an ocean of lightweight down comforter. Unadorned with any sort of duvet cover, it was as white as a fluffy cloud. There were double doors opening onto a balcony, and the furnishings were sturdy blonde wood, constructed to look as though their creation had been minimally guided by human hands; full of whorls and rough edges, sanded and shiny with clear varnish.

 

“My name is Will Graham,” he muttered, “and I have no idea what time it is. I’m in Santa Rosa, New Mexico.” He yawned, pushing himself up against the pillows, and spotted a glass of water on the nightstand, still beaded with condensation. He reached over to grab it, wincing at the stretch, and chugged its contents with a blissful expression. He barely remembered arriving at their destination; Hannibal had guided him, bleary eyed and half asleep, straight into bed and then disappeared, presumably to bring in their things and prowl around the house making sure everything met his meticulous standards. Will had to admit though, Dr. Lecter was nothing if not adaptable; he hadn’t complained about the Louisiana house, though it was nothing near what he was accustomed to. He’d lounged as elegantly at ease on the faded, sagging sofa there as he had on the fine furniture at his home in Baltimore. Lounging, come to think of it, was not all he’d done on that worn old sofa; Will’s cheeks heated faintly at the memory of seeing Hannibal on his knees, his cock stirring with interest inside his boxers.

 

Naturally, that was the precise moment that Dr. Lecter opened the double doors and stepped inside from the balcony in a puddle of deep golden sunlight. Being Hannibal, he was fully dressed in slacks with a knife-edge crease, and an impeccable burgundy button down shirt; it was open at the throat, and he wasn’t wearing a tie, so Will supposed it passed for casual – no pocket square in the waistcoat either. He was as turned out as he ever was at home, not a hair out of place and cleanly shaven. His eyes traveled up over Will’s throat and paused at the slight flush across his face.

 

“How are you feeling?” inquired Dr. Lecter, “you’ve been asleep for nearly twelve hours.”

 

“Rested. Sore,” replied Will, and after a moment’s consideration, added, “hungry.”

 

“I believe both of those problems can be easily enough remedied,” said Hannibal, crossing the gleaming marble-tiled floor toward the bed.

 

“Do we have food here?”

 

“A fully stocked pantry,” said Hannibal, his generally rather impassive features warming a bit at the thought, “it would be my pleasure to prepare us something. It’s nearly time for dinner anyway. Why don’t you put on something comfortable and join me downstairs? I have something that I’d like to show you, as well.”

 

Leaving Will to get dressed and ponder the mystery of his final sentence, Hannibal left the room and closed the door politely behind him.

 

When Will emerged from the bedroom a few minutes later, teeth brushed, hair combed and dressed casually, he discovered that the house Hannibal had chosen for them was very different from his Baltimore residence. The imposing, ornate paneling and furniture was gone, replaced by inviting open spaces, airy, well-lit rooms and light, warm colors. The staircase leading downstairs was broad, sweeping in a natural curve toward the gleaming expanse of hardwood in the foyer. He paused at a window to peruse the surroundings of the house and saw no other residences nearby, only a long driveway shaded by desert willows and immense Arizona cypress trees; bright yellow rabbitbrush flowers proliferated in large shrubs across the grounds. He found Hannibal exactly where he expected to – it was only a matter of locating the kitchen, which was massive, modern and gleaming with high end appliances.

 

Dr. Lecter looked up from the chopping block, where he was seeding and slicing bell peppers with his customary flair and precision. He offered Will a rather feline half smile, his hooded eyes warming.

 

“Would you like a glass of wine?” he asked. Will nodded, his sea green gaze traveling around the room with interest as Hannibal poured them each a glass of the Baron de Ley Gran Reserva Rioja he was planning to pair with the Basque style chicken he’d decided to make, inspired by the rather Spanish feel of their current locale.

 

“What is it that you want to show me?” inquired Will, taking an experimental sip of his wine.

 

“It was to my great regret that we were forced to leave Louisiana so quickly,” explained Hannibal, mincing a few cloves of garlic, “I had intended to show you the elevation of your sacrifice.”

 

“I … was curious what you’d done with them,” admitted Will.

 

“You were a beautiful, brutal creature that night. I wished very much to do justice to your design.”

 

Will considered a moment and said,

 

“It wasn’t my design. I had to kill him – I had no other choice.”

 

“There were other choices. You could have taken the opportunity to let him kill me and walk away,” pointed out Hannibal, seasoning chicken thighs with salt, pepper and piment d’Espelette with easy dexterity. A bitter smile crossed Will’s face that was nearly a grimace.

 

“Do you really think that I believe you would have let that happen?” he said. A ghost of a smile crossed Dr. Lecter’s lips.

 

“No,” he replied, “and you are correct – I would not have done. Certainly if you had not chosen to shoot your cousin, I would have had to kill him myself.”

 

“You held back because you wanted to see what I would do.”

 

It was a statement, not a question; Hannibal inclined his chin a fraction in acknowledgment and met Will’s eyes.

 

“How does that make you feel?” he inquired. Will huffed an amused noise through his nose.

 

“I’m not your patient, Doctor.”

 

“Perhaps not in a psychiatric sense,” replied Hannibal, pointedly, “but it seems that I am indeed your doctor. Or do you disagree?”

 

Will flushed slightly and swallowed a mouthful of wine, countless scenarios running through his mind. His eyes instinctively fell to Hannibal’s surgeon’s hands before lifting to his face.

 

“No,” he said, a little throatily, “I don’t disagree.”

 

He fell silent for a long moment, merely watching the domestic efficiency of Hannibal moving around in the kitchen, searing the seasoned chicken in duck fat. Finally, he said,

 

“I want to watch you perform surgery. Actual surgery. I want to see your hands inside a living body.”

 

“Holding the power of life over death?” inquired Hannibal, “is that what arouses you about the idea?”

 

“That makes you God, or something like it,” said Will, “but yes – and no. I just … want to watch you do it.”

 

“Does this hypothetical patient live or die, Will?”

 

“If they died on the table, I wouldn’t object … but I think I want them to live. With part of themselves missing.”

 

A look of such dark approval crossed Dr. Lecter’s face that Will shuddered slightly, lust pooling in his groin like liquid fire.

 

“It would be my pleasure, Will,” he said, the low pitched rasp of his Lithuanian accent deepening the flush across Will’s fine cheekbones.

 

After dinner, it occurred to Will that Hannibal had never completely answered his earlier question; lingering over the remains of the wine, he said,

 

“You had something to show me?”

 

“I do,” replied Hannibal, “please, join me in the study.”

 

He stood, lithe and smooth, and with his wineglass in hand, led the way through the house; the shadows were lengthening now as the sun set, and he turned on a few lights as he went. Will followed him as he stepped through a doorway and turned on a tall lamp; it was indeed a study, with an imposing desk that looked more to Hannibal’s usual taste than the rest of the house, but it was also a large enough room to accommodate two sofas and a coffee table. Over the sofa, softly underlit, was a large painting in a somber palette of grays and blacks; even the skin of the classically Greek male form was pale with death; he was being carried upward, his face hidden beneath a shroud, by an androgynous figure with a riot of curls and a winged circlet. It looked vaguely familiar to Will; he looked sidelong at Hannibal, who had moved to stand beside him before the painting.

 

“Sarpedon, carried away by Sleep and Death,” he said, lifting a brow slightly, his eyes hooded and unreadable.

 

“Wasn’t Sarpedon a son of Zeus?” said Will, studying the painting and shifting slightly under the weight of Hannibal’s attention.

 

“When Patroclus fought his final battle in the armor of Achilles, Sarpedon met him in combat; Zeus knew that he was fated to die by the hand of Patroclus, and was forced to make the choice not to spare his life. During their fight, Zeus sent a shower of bloody raindrops over the Trojans, in grief for the death of his son.”

 

Hannibal turned away then, to collect his tablet from the desk.

 

“It would seem that fate has also been kind enough to deliver Ms. Lounds to Louisiana and gain access to a certain crime scene,” he added, turning it on and passing it to Will. The resemblance between the painting and the gruesome photograph on the screen was too close to miss – the form of Bobby Graham’s corpse, missing head concealed with a drape of cloth from the female cadaver’s dress, limbs arranged as if he were being borne aloft by the woman’s lifeless arms just above him; the black tarpaulin formed the darkness edging into the painting. It was a masterpiece. Will’s breath caught in his throat.

 

“We left them a shower of blood,” he said, at last. Hannibal pulled him close then, with possessive hands around his waist, leaning in to scent his neck and drag his lips over the pale, tender skin, pausing to deliver a sharp bite over his racing pulse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No Jack this time. But he'll be back, I'm sure ;)  
> The painting in Hannibal's study is Sarpedon Carried Away by Sleep and Death, by Henry Fuseli.


	26. Chapter 26

DES ALLEMANDS, LA

 

The next day, after snatching a few hours of sleep in a local motel, Jack Crawford and the rest of the BAU team had resumed their investigative efforts. Agent Lane had been out questioning everyone local who might be known to rent any sort of transportation, including an off season tour guide by the name of John Perry. He was a person of interest, having flown from Des Allemands to Lubbock, Texas the previous day, but he’d stolidly maintained that he had been alone and had gone to look at some property he was thinking of buying. He was still on the FBI’s radar but there was no evidence that he was speaking anything but the truth, so his presence there was low key. Just in case, though, police around the Lubbock area had been alerted to the possibility of a federal fugitive on the lauded FBI’s Most Wanted list in their jurisdiction.

 

Meanwhile, what was troubling Crawford was the dead pair they’d found in the truck bed. Agent Diaz, who’d studied some classical art in college, had found the scene eerily familiar, and taken the crime scene photographs back to the motel with him to study; the identification lurked just out of reach, and when he finally fell asleep, it swam against the inside of his closed eyelids. He awakened the next day with the thrill of recognition, and had immediately phoned Jack Crawford. Over a diner breakfast, along with Zeller and Price, they looked at a side by side comparison of the crime scene and an early 19th century painting by Henry Fuseli.

 

“I don’t know what the significance of the painting is to Lecter,” said Diaz, buttering a piece of toast with enthusiasm, “but it’s obviously the inspiration for the scene he left.”

 

“What is the painting _of_?” inquired Jack, gruffly. He had a plate of food in front of him but had hardly touched it; he looked as though he hadn’t slept much either.

 

“It’s from the Iliad,” said Diaz.

 

“Dr. Lecter always had an interest in Greek mythology,” Price added helpfully, “I remember he used to discuss it with Will.” Jack’s eyes narrowed slightly in a grimace at the memory of their attempt to lure Hannibal into showing his hand, before he’d left for Florence leaving such bloodshed in his wake. Absently, he rubbed the scar on the side of his neck.

 

“It’s a portrayal of the death of Sarpedon, a son of Zeus,” explained Diaz, “he was killed by Patroclus when he went into battle wearing the armor of Achilles.”

 

He blinked as Jack leaned forward, his interest sharpening.

 

“Patroclus killed him?” he said.

 

“Yep. Zeus wanted to intervene but couldn’t, because the other Gods would do the same; he made it rain blood on the Trojans instead.”

 

Jack pushed his plate away and turned toward Price and Zeller.

 

“Was a firearm ever used in any of Dr. Lecter’s known murders?” he asked, his tone lace with both urgency and unease. The two men looked at each other, wearing identical frowns of concentration.

 

“Let’s see … no, not that I can think of,” said Zeller, “although it’s hard to tell for sure, since not all of the bodies were found, and some were uh … butchered and packaged for meat.” Diaz glanced at his sausage instinctively with a look of displeasure and resisted the urge to make the sign of the cross for the first time in years. He was new to the BAU and hadn’t been a part of the investigation at Hannibal’s Baltimore house.

 

“He prefers sharp instruments, weapons of opportunity … he’s also capable of dispatching victims without a weapon,” said Jack grimly, who had firsthand experience of all of the above.

 

“But I guess since Bobby Graham was killed with a shotgun, he – wait, are you saying that you think _Will_ killed Robert Graham?” Price’s eyes widened a fraction and he shook his head.

 

“No way,” he said, “it had to have been Lecter. That was his cousin for god’s sake.”

 

“Lecter killed the girl for sure. He snapped her neck, that’s his style,” said Zeller, frowning.

 

“During their conversations, Dr. Lecter compared himself and Will to Achilles and Patroclus,” said Crawford, heavily, “I think that we have to consider the possibility that Lecter wasn’t the only killer.”

 

“Well then why did Lecter kill Will, if they were working together?” said Price, still unwilling to accept the possibility, despite Will’s known violent acts in the past.

 

“Are we 100% sure that he did?” said Diaz, “the only thing I saw absolute evidence of was that they had intercourse – whether it was consensual or not is still up in the air, but if it was, it was rough as hell.”

 

Crawford, his face stoic as a stone statue, eyes flat and dark, did not acknowledge the latter part of the statement. Instead, he said,

 

“Price – is there any possibility at all of Will having lost that much blood and survived?”

 

“Not without an immediate transfusion.”

 

“Which Lecter would know how to do, as a former surgeon,” pointed out Diaz.

 

“You can’t just walk into the local gas station and buy a few units of blood,” protested Price.

 

“Where’s the nearest hospital with a blood bank?” said Crawford, grim faced.

 

SANTA ROSA, NM

 

Will was sitting on the butcher’s block in his boxers, surrounded by gleaming stainless steel appliances. Hannibal, sleeves rolled back to his elbows, was preparing to make good on his promise to remove Will’s stitches. His hands neatly sheathed in surgical gloves, he removed a pair of tweezers and small, sharp surgical scissors from his medical bag and placed them beside Will on a piece of sterile cloth. With two fingers firmly beneath Will’s chin, he tilted the profiler’s head back to examine the neat row of stitches. Will pliantly let himself be maneuvered; the smooth feel of Hannibal’s gloved fingers against the tender skin made him shiver, and he wondered wryly when that had become a turn-on. He’d never found himself with an awkward erection during his physical examinations for the FBI. A sliver of memory surfaced – Hannibal, called into action by Jack Crawford, in the back of an ambulance holding a man’s living heart in his hand. Perhaps that was when it had happened. The image in his head made him exhale shakily, unsteady for a moment. His imagination had always been as vivid as fresh blood.

 

“It’s healed nicely,” said Hannibal, with a professional tone of detachment that did nothing to alleviate the slow heat of Will’s arousal. Dr. Lecter could smell it on him, a faint visceral musk, heady and alluring. He turned away to soak a cotton ball in rubbing alcohol; it was cold against Will’s jaw as Hannibal carefully sterilized the area, taking his time about it as though it were the most exquisite foreplay. Will fought not to squirm. Dr. Lecter paused for a moment to admire the way the bright overhead light spot lit Will’s finely wrought bone structure and chiseled torso. Then, he picked up the tweezers and scissors and with deft, practiced movements, used the tweezers to lift the first knot and snipped the suture next to the wound; as he gently drew the thread through the skin and out, there was an odd sensation of pressure, but no pain. He repeated the process with careful precision until a small pile of used thread lay next on the cloth, and then ran a thumb over the now-smooth skin.

 

“Much better,” he said, claret colored eyes narrowing slightly in approval. He disposed of the clipped stitches, sterilized and put away the tweezers and scissors, and started to remove the gloves, when Will spoke abruptly into the quiet.

 

“No, leave them on,” he said, throatily. Hannibal turned toward him with the inquisitive look of a cat that spots potential prey. Will was still sitting on the butcher’s block, with his weight settled on his elbows, bare torso upturned to the light and a very visible erection tenting the front of his boxers. He looked like a sacrifice, presented willingly upon an altar. His blue-green eyes were stormy when they met Dr. Lecter’s gaze. Hannibal came to the lure like a falcon to the fist; dangerous and willingly enticed. He didn’t need to ask what Will wanted. Deliberately controlled, he placed a gloved hand flat upon the plane of Will’s chest and dragged it down over his torso, feeling his breath hitch under his hand. His belly quivered under Dr. Lecter’s touch, firm and vulnerable; when that expert, lethal hand paused on his lower abdomen before dragging the waistband of his boxers down to free his cock, gooseflesh rippled over his arms and chest.

 

“Doctor Lecter,” he breathed, head tilting back to expose the pale line of his throat. Hannibal’s burgundy gaze traveled up the column of pale, yielding flesh, lingering with brief satisfaction on the slight bruise where he’d bitten him two days earlier. He reached into his medical bag and retrieved the medical grade lubricant, coating his gloved palm liberally with it before taking Will’s straining cock in his hand, eliciting a needy whimper from the younger man. Hannibal stroked him in controlled, steady movements, the slick clench of his fist calculated and slow; Will lifted his hips, shamelessly greedy and thrusting into Dr. Lecter’s gloved hand, a deep flush creeping over his chest and cheekbones. He was panting now, wanton against Hannibal’s deliberately professional demeanor; the heat in Hannibal’s eyes was all that betrayed his own barely banked lust. Dr. Lecter gripped the muscle of Will’s thigh with his free hand and began to stroke him faster; Will’s hips stuttered in blind, pleasure seeking thrusts, and then he was coming in thick spurts over the tensed muscles of his abdomen, groaning helplessly from between clenched teeth.

 

Hannibal finally stripped off his gloves then, dropping them into the trash can nearby. He turned back toward Will, who was now lying on his back on the butcher’s block, gorgeously flushed and breathless; fetching a dish towel, Dr. Lecter cleaned him up as he regained his composure.

 

“Have you considered who you’d like to see experience surgery?” inquired Hannibal, conversationally. Will sat up on the edge of the butcher’s block, and said,

 

“I do have some thoughts.”


	27. Chapter 27

Later, in the living room, Will – now dressed again – sipped Whistlepig bourbon from a cut crystal tumbler and listened to the far away howl of what he assumed was a coyote. Hannibal was sketching something on the other side of the room, occasionally pausing to sharpen his pencil with a scalpel.

 

“I met Bedelia in Florence,” said Will, breaking the silence. Hannibal looked up over his sketchbook, brow lifting a fraction.

 

“Was she pleased to see you?” he inquired.

 

“Definitely not… but she wasn’t surprised either.”

 

“I imagine not; she knew that you and Jack were in Florence when she chose to save herself and say her farewells,” said Hannibal, closing the cover of his sketchbook and putting it aside on the end table in favor of giving Will his full attention.

 

“She certainly had her exit strategy well planned,” said Will, an edge to his wry tone, “she’ll probably end up writing a bestselling book about your time together and being lauded as a victim.”

 

“Does that disturb you?”

 

“It disturbs me to see her profit from it, yes. Bedelia was no victim. Or was she?”

 

“No. She was with me quite willingly, I assure you. Is Bedelia your candidate for surgery, Will?”

 

“No. I want the patient in question to live. To serve a purpose. Bedelia has served her purpose already; the only thing left for her to do is to die.”

 

Will raised a brow, tilting his head slightly with a half-smile touching his lips, and added,

 

“You play, you pay.”

 

“Bedelia owes me a meal,” said Hannibal, his burgundy eyes darkening with pleasure at Will’s savage resentment toward his former companion.

 

“It would be a shame to eat her alone,” said Will, lightly.

 

“I would certainly prefer to do it with your company. You want her to see, don’t you?”

 

“ _Yes_. I want her to see what this is, what _we_ are.”

 

“And what Bedelia and I were not?” inquired Hannibal, “you’ve never mentioned her until tonight.”

 

“I’ve been thinking it over.”

 

“Then it seems Dr. DuMaurier’s days as a lauded victim are numbered.”

 

“Thank you, Hannibal,” said Will, getting up from his seat and carrying his drink over to Dr. Lecter, who watched him approach with the hunger of a large predator in his claret colored eyes. Hannibal looked up at Will, standing in front of him and pausing to sip his bourbon, and said,

 

“The pleasure is mine.”

 

Will put his drink down beside Hannibal’s sketchpad and slid onto his lap, muscular thighs straddling Hannibal’s lean hips and pressing his backside solidly against the older man’s groin. Hannibal slid his hands over Will’s taut thighs and down over his hips, pulling him closer.

 

“Your jealousy is utterly charming in its ruthlessness,” he said, a rough purr of satisfaction touching his voice.

 

“You don’t belong to anybody else,” said Will, flushed with victory and alcohol, “I want to kill anyone who touches you.”

 

“We are very much alike in that, Will.” Hannibal, his hands firmly pinning Will in place, leaned forward to drag sharp teeth over the side of his neck, wringing a low moan from the profiler before drawing back to look him in the face.

 

“If not Bedelia, then who is your surgical candidate?” he inquired.

 

“Now that we’re out of Louisiana, I want Jack to know as well … this patient would take care of that,” said Will, fighting not to be distracted by the hardening cock pressed insistently against his backside.

 

“And I have unfinished business that I’d like to resolve.”

 

“Miss Lounds _has_ been very rude,” murmured Hannibal, lifting a brow. His inscrutable expression betrayed nothing, his eyes hooded and dark. The sudden coldness in them made Will shiver a little despite himself. It was still possible for Hannibal Lecter to unnerve him, but somehow that only served to heighten his arousal.

 

“Have you thought of what you’d like her to lose?” asked Hannibal, holding Will’s gaze, his hands lazily running over the curve of his ass. His cock was fully hard now, hot and huge against Will’s backside, and the younger man squirmed against it involuntarily.

 

“I think I’d like to decide that when we see her,” said Will, after a moment of thought that was becoming less coherent by the minute.

 

“An element of spontaneity often heightens the pleasure of the moment,” observed Hannibal, lifting his hands to idly begin unfastening the buttons of Will’s shirt, exposing his skin inch by inch. Fighting the urge to whimper, Will rutted involuntarily against Hannibal as his shirt was removed and tossed aside. This was close and hot and the mental space he craved from Hannibal in a professional medical role was utterly gone, leaving Will feeling raw and exposed. Hannibal’s hands were warm and steady as they slid up his sides and down his chest, pausing to trace the thick scar across his abdomen. He turned his head to the side, where Will’s right hand was resting on his shoulder, and nuzzled the bandages across his wrist, sending a twinge of pain rushing up Will’s arm.

 

Abruptly, he slid his hands beneath Will’s ass and stood, lifting the younger man along with him as though he weighed next to nothing and startling him a bit. He deposited Will on his feet, reached down and deftly unfastened the button of his jeans with one hand.

 

“Take off the rest of your clothes and wait here,” he said, then turned with economical grace and left the room. Will, flushed and breathless, picked up his glass and swallowed the rest of his bourbon in two mouthfuls before complying, dropping his boxers and jeans beside his shirt in an untidy pile. Hannibal returned momentarily to find him perched naked on the arm of the sofa, his hard cock leaking wetly against his thigh, just as flushed as his face. His eyes widened slightly, pupils huge and dark, as Hannibal approached, still fully dressed.

 

“Aren’t you going to take me to bed?” inquired Will.

 

“I _am_ going to take you, Will,” replied Hannibal, his low pitched voice rough with arousal, “but not to bed. Turn around.”

 

Will did as he was told, slipping off the arm of the sofa and turning to face it, his pulse racing. Hannibal placed a hand in the center of his back, pushing him down until he was bent over the arm of the sofa.

 

“Spread your legs for me,” he said. Will complied, his hands gripping the material of the sofa as Hannibal ran a possessive hand over the curve of his ass. The muscles in his thighs quivered as he felt slick fingers circling his hole and massaging his perineum with an expertise that seemed almost clinically perfect; he felt vulnerable and overexposed in this position, his cheeks flaming red as the pad of a finger slid inside him, further in and then withdrawn, in and out.

 

“Good boy,” breathed Hannibal, as Will began to relax and open up for him, the alcohol easing the residual soreness he still felt there. Will moaned as a second finger breached him, and when two fingers slid in and out over the small bump just inside, swollen with arousal, massaging it in firm, deliberate strokes, he shuddered and whimpered Hannibal’s name. When he was pushing back against Hannibal’s hand, shamelessly wanton and moaning, the fingers were withdrawn, leaving Will feeling empty and desperate.

 

“Hannibal,” he gasped. He could hear the buckle of a belt being unfastened, a zipper. His hands mindlessly clenched the sofa with sweaty palms. Then he felt the thick, blunt head of Hannibal’s hard cock, slippery with lube and fat against his needy hole.

 

“Is this what you want, Will?” asked Dr. Lecter, Lithuanian accent thickened with lust.

 

“Please – _yes_. Fuck me.” A low pitched rumble of assent, and then he could feel Hannibal’s hand on the back of his neck, unyielding as the thick head of his cock breached Will’s body, stretching and burning as he sheathed himself slowly inside.

 

“Fuck, ah God,” groaned Will, incoherently. He felt so full, it hurt and he needed it, panting with his head down submissively, Hannibal’s grip tightening on the back of his neck as he began to move inside him, slick and hot and _huge_. Will braced himself against the sofa and pushed his hips back to meet each solid thrust; he felt Hannibal’s free hand slide over his back, squeezing his ass hard enough to bruise before sliding around and encircling Will’s neglected cock, pumping the engorged shaft in time with every thrust of his hips. Hannibal’s girth sliding in and out of him as his slick hand stroked his cock felt so good that Will was oblivious to the noises he was making, shameless in his pursuit of pleasure. The pace became punishing as Hannibal fucked into him mercilessly, the slick slap of flesh against flesh mingling with Will’s moans in a debauched chorus.

 

Will’s orgasm was approaching with the inevitability and force of a freight train without brakes; every strong thrust inside him sent stars bursting behind his eyelids and his well-used body began to clench around Hannibal in spasms. Hannibal drove into him in short, deep thrusts through it; Will’s cock pulsed in his hand and as thick spurts of semen began to coat the side of the sofa, his eyes screwed shut in complete neural disarray, gasping groans pushing from between his teeth. His clenching body pushed Hannibal over the edge as well; the hand on Will’s neck gripped with bruising force as he filled him with his release, hot and thick.

 

They didn’t move for a long moment; Hannibal, his usually immaculate hair falling in his eyes, finally slipped out of Will and rearranged his clothing. Will took longer to move; Hannibal slipped an arm around his waist and pulled him upright against his chest, feeling his racing heart under his hand as he slid it up Will’s sweat-sheened torso.

 

“Now I’ll take you to bed,” he said, pressing a kiss against Will’s shoulder.

 

 

 


	28. Chapter 28

BILL SKINS FIFTH

 

Hannibal read the headline with a brow lifted a fraction, scrolling idly through the Tattlecrime website. He was comfortably ensconced in a chair on the back dock with his tablet, watching Will swim. There was a natural swimming hole some distance behind the house, incongruous in the rocky desert landscape; the water was crystal clear and surrounded by colorful desert flora; the approach was a stone pathway from the house, ending at a patio area with a chimenea and some comfortable seating.

 

“It seems that our nomadic friend has added another unfortunate girl to his collection,” commented Hannibal.

 

Treading water, Will turned to face him. The water was quite deep; he’d have had to plunge a few feet down to touch the bottom in the center.

 

“Where this time?” he inquired. They’d been following Jack’s latest foe by means of Freddie Lounds; Buffalo Bill, as they were calling him, had taken their place in the spotlight a few weeks earlier. They’d spent the time healing, as Hannibal had promised, and entertaining themselves privately – they had, essentially, gone to ground and disappeared. Every week, Chiyoh came in a late model truck and brought groceries. They were both getting restless by this time, but Hannibal possessed an unnatural level of patience, the quintessential predator, and the time was nearing for them to approach their prey.

 

“Elk River, West Virginia,” replied Hannibal, “mutilated in the same manner as the others.”

 

“Are they any closer to figuring it out?” said Will, with a touch of disdain.

 

“They perhaps would, if they ever utilized a proper tailor,” said Hannibal, dryly.

 

“Maybe you should have been the profiler,” replied Will, with a wry twist of his mouth.

 

“I could never match your gift, Will,” said Hannibal, placidly, “I merely recognize tailor’s darts when I see them. Besides, this particular killer has been fixated on becoming something else for a very long time.”

 

“That sounds suspiciously like you know more than you’ve said about him,” said Will, cutting through the water toward the dock with smooth strokes. The scars on his wrists were pink and shiny now, like the bullet wound in his shoulder. He hoisted himself out of the water, gleaming and naked; his pale skin was darkened a touch with the sun, pink across the bridge of his nose and his shoulders. Hannibal permitted his burgundy gaze to travel up and down the length of his toned body before deliberately looking up and meeting his eyes.

 

“Tell me,” persisted Will.

 

“All good things to those who wait,” said Hannibal, a low rasp. He stood then, handing Will the towel folded on the table beside him.

 

“You are infuriating sometimes,” grumbled Will, drying off absent mindedly, “at least tell me why you’ve been so interested in this particular killer. Is it because he stole our place in Jack’s nightmares?”

 

“I can assure you that he won’t have quite managed that,” said Hannibal, “however … one of the reasons for my interest is not in his role as a killer, but his role as something else we need … assuming, of course, that you still wish to fulfill your desire to see Miss Lounds punished for her transgressions.”

 

“Bait,” said Will, speaking simultaneously with the realization. He practically rolled his eyes at himself for not thinking of it sooner.

 

“Of course wherever he drops a body, Freddie will be right there to add to the indignity of their death,” he added, “but I’m not clear on how we’re supposed to anticipate him – and to get there before Jack.” He looked hard at Hannibal for a moment, then said,

 

“I’ll bet you do though, don’t you?”

 

“I might have an idea,” said Hannibal, turning toward the house; he walked beside Will with his usual gracefully efficient gait, fully dressed beside Will, who was merely wearing the towel wrapped around his waist.

 

“Perhaps you’d like to discuss it over dinner?”

 

“Yeah… dinner sounds good,” said Will, looking sidelong at Hannibal’s profile as they reached the back door, “speaking of dinner, has Chiyoh managed to find Bedelia yet?”

 

“How bloodthirsty you are,” Hannibal murmured, leaning into his neck to place a kiss over a nearly healed bite mark, “it’s most becoming.”

 

“And you are a tease,” said Will, nevertheless tilting his head back to allow better access, “also, you have a bad habit of avoiding questions.” Hannibal licked a slick stripe over his pulse, pausing to let his mouth linger over the vulnerable spot and making Will shiver slightly.

 

“Bedelia is in Barcelona,” he said, “at least for the time being.”

 

“I’ve never been to Spain,” breathed Will. Hannibal drew back with a look of terrible fondness.

 

“Then we shall take a holiday,” he said, “after our business in the States is concluded. You needn’t worry about our absence from Jack Crawford’s nightmares, Will. We will live there for the rest of his life, whether you and I exist or not.”

 

While Will dressed, Hannibal prepared the meal. He’d already done most of the work; the beef paupiettes had been simmering that morning in a clay pot with white wine, garlic, porcini mushrooms and a bouquet garni of fresh herbs and orange zest all wrapped in cheesecloth. They’d been transferred to a side dish with the _ventreche_ falling out into the strained broth, and degreased when they were cool, the strings cut expertly away from the beef. Hannibal spared a moment of genuine regret for the lack of human meat at his table of late, and vowed inwardly to remedy the situation as soon as possible. Having returned the rolls and sauce to the clay pot, he set them to cook a while longer, his remaining _mise en place_ leaving only vinegar, capers, and garnishes.

 

When Will came back downstairs, casual in a v-neck t-shirt and jeans, the house was filled with the delicious aroma of meat and herbs. Hannibal, ever the consummate host, brought two glasses over to the counter and placed one in front of Will.

 

“A light aperitif … Lillet Blanc, St. Germain, gin and fresh grapefruit juice,” he said, “dinner will be served in an hour.”

 

“I’m not sure that my appetite needs further stimulating,” said Will, amused, and tried a sip.

 

“Refreshing,” he commented.

 

“Tart and sweet on the palate,” observed Hannibal, meeting his gaze, the corners of his eyes tightening in a look of rather prurient amusement. Will, despite the past few weeks they’d been together, flushed slightly at the tips of his ears.

 

“So,” said Will after a moment, “was Buffalo Bill one of your patients?”

 

“You’ve given it some thought already,” said Hannibal, taking a sip of his own cocktail and savoring it briefly.

 

“I actually met him through another patient; much like Mr. Froideveaux, he had a fixation with psychopaths. He, too, ended up on the block.”

 

“Did you kill him?”

 

“No… merely tucked him away very much as I found him,” said Hannibal, considering his glass briefly before looking at Will.

 

“Interesting,” said Will, “of course you didn’t expose him. I suppose you were _curious_ what would happen.” His tone held a slight edge.

 

“I was, yes. However, he was a disappointing and commonplace subject. Nobody has ever aroused my curiosity the way that you do.”

 

“Your curiosity is aroused like a cat playing with a wounded bird,” observed Will, tartly.

 

“Do you feel like a wounded bird, Will?”

 

“No,” breathed Will, his eyes slipping half closed for a moment in consideration, “I believe I’m learning to fly.”

 

“Your wings are unfurling,” said Hannibal, softly, “how glorious they will be, when you truly gain the air.”


	29. Chapter 29

“Wouldn’t those be safer at the house?” said Will, as Hannibal carefully loaded the case containing Lady Murasaki’s swords into the trunk of the Kia.

 

“Perhaps. But there is no guarantee that we’ll be returning for them,” said Hannibal, straightening and turning toward Will with one of his more inscrutable expressions. Their suitcases were already loaded into the car, along with new identification and documents. It was a warm day, the sun bright and merciless, and Will’s temples were glistening with perspiration.

 

“I hardly think the two of us together have anything to worry about from this guy,” said Will, with look of vague disdain, “he likes to kill teenage girls.”

 

“I very much doubt that we’ll even catch a glimpse of him,” said Hannibal, “after all, it isn’t him that we’re planning to meet.”

 

“You seemed pretty sure that you’d be able to find the murder scene before Jack,” pointed out Will, “that indicates proximity at least.”

 

“I have no intention of _finding_ a murder scene,” said Hannibal, simply. Then he got into the car, promptly turning up the air conditioning. Will frowned over this for a moment, and then got in as well.

 

“You’re going to create one,” stated Will, factually. He turned to face Hannibal then, his tone harsh as he added,

 

“Hannibal, I’m _not_ comfortable with murdering a teenaged girl just to stage a Buffalo Bill crime scene.”

 

“The FBI has yet to determine how he’s choosing them,” said Hannibal, calmly, “an older female would be perfectly adequate. I’m certain that we can find someone deserving. You may choose one yourself, if you like.”

 

Will sat in tense silence for a long moment. Finally, he said,

 

“Freddie was supposed to be the only target. I didn’t intend for anyone else to … be involved.”

 

“Now that your wish is on the verge of being granted, you are finding that you are not prepared for the manner in which it is fulfilled,” said Hannibal, “how did you imagine that we would catch her, Will? Slip into Baltimore and wait in her no-doubt heavily monitored home, and then spirit her away from beneath the very nose of Jack Crawford?”

 

“I thought the bait we were using was a killer,” said Will, sharply, “not an innocent woman.”

 

“We are borrowing a killer’s _modus operandi_ , not the killer himself. At a time and place of our choosing, not his, with all of the advantages that accompany it.”

 

Will turned toward the window, watching the rocky landscape pass without really seeing it. His chest felt tight, his body tense and restless. This _was_ what he had wanted, wasn’t it? His mind drifted unbidden toward the sight of Hannibal with his hands covered in Will’s own blood, restraining him, taking him without mercy; the coldness that sometimes chilled his impassive countenance, and the heat in his claret colored irises that flared like banked flame at his nearness. _Hannibal_ was what he wanted. Despite everything, and despite what he was.

 

“Is _this_ not what you thought it would be?” inquired Hannibal, softly.

 

“I’m not exactly sure what I thought it would be,” said Will, after a pause, “there were some things I didn’t consider.”

 

“You certainly considered murder,” observed Hannibal, “you killed your cousin without a second thought.”

 

“I had no choice,” said Will, irritably, “we’ve already discussed this.”

 

“And you know perfectly well that it isn’t true. You didn’t bat an eye at his companion’s death either – I should imagine she was certainly an innocent, by your standards.”

 

“That was completely different,” snapped Will, “this is – premeditated. It isn’t a necessary death.”

 

“You are being quite hypocritical,” said Hannibal, his features rather glacial in profile, “have you forgotten that we are on this errand at your request?”

 

Will sagged a little in his seat, conflicted in a way that he hadn’t been recently in their secluded home. The road was deserted in both directions; Hannibal pulled the car over to the side of the road in a cloud of dust and turned to face Will.

 

“Perhaps the reality of what you want has become overwhelming now that you are face to face with it,” said Hannibal, his tone deceptively calm, “would you like to withdraw your request? This is your last chance to do so – if we do not turn back now, everything will be as you desired. If we return to the house, we will not speak of it again.”

 

Will, feeling pinned by Hannibal’s hooded gaze, exhaled shakily. His ready imagination supplied him with a collage of invasions of his privacy, comments taken out of context, headlines declaring dramatic suppositions. A flame of anger began to burn away the uncertainty; a single life – one that Hannibal would allow him to choose – was it such a high price to pay for such a glorious caliber of justice? His pulse racing, he shook his head.

 

“No,” he said, throatily, “I don’t want to withdraw the request.”

 

He leaned forward, placing a hand on Hannibal’s broad shoulder and then gripping the muscle tightly. Hannibal inhaled sharply and then lifted a hand to grasp a handful of unruly hair at the nape of Will’s neck, pulling him into a kiss that was leisurely and possessive all at once, a hot, slick slide of tongues and lips. When he drew back, Will was flushed and looked rather ravished as he fell back into the passenger seat.

 

“Okay,” said the younger man a little shakily, “let’s go.”

 

“Of course,” said Hannibal, a slight smile gracing his mouth as he pulled back onto the road. The in-dash GPS was programmed for a small town in Kansas named Stockton.

 

 


	30. Chapter 30

The dining options in the middle of the flatlands of Kansas were not plentiful; it was ten o’clock at night before Hannibal finally consented to stop at one of the dusty diners that lined the exits along I-70. Parking the unobtrusive (and rather dirty) Kia alongside the only two vehicles in the parking lot – an old truck with faded white paint and a ’76 Camaro that was road-dusty but no doubt someone’s pride and joy. As they walked into the place, Will looking considerably road-rumpled, while Hannibal somehow managed to look as immaculate as ever, a small bell tinkled overhead. The short order cook, bulky in a grease stained apron, looked them over with an insolent smirk and leaned over to say something under his breath to a man seated at the high counter, lean in faded jeans and a black t-shirt with lank dirty blonde hair tied back in a ponytail. They both laughed, and the waitress giggled, uniform straining against the swell of her bosom and belly, dyed red hair curly under a scarf.

 

Hannibal, looking as unimpressed as he had inside WalMart, sat in a booth gingerly with a murderous glint in his eyes and a glacial expression; Will scowled at the two men and slid into the booth, picking up the plastic covered menu. The waitress sidled over; a glance at her nametag identified her as Maureen. She was on the downward slope of forty, and might have been attractive once.

 

“Getcha something?” she said, doodling on her notepad.

 

“Coffee,” said Will, gruffly, “black.” Her attention turned toward Hannibal, who was studying the menu as if it were a newly discovered species of sewer rat. At length, he looked up at her and said,

 

“I’ll have the same, please.”

 

“Sure you boys don’t want something a little sweeter?” she inquired, shooting a saucy look at the two men at the counter.

 

“I very much doubt you have anything else we’d want,” grumbled Will, which was naturally taken completely out of context.

 

“I’ll bet _not_ ,” drawled Maureen, before sauntering off behind the counter.

 

The coffee came out a moment later, Maureen slopping it over the rim of the cup onto Hannibal’s hand with an unconvincing “oops!”. Despite the temperature of the liquid, he did not flinch, and when he looked up at her with a raised brow, there was something in his hooded eyes that unsettled her enough that she fled promptly to the kitchen.

 

“She’s his type,” commented Will, lifting his brows to meet Hannibal’s gaze. A fleeting smile ghosted across Hannibal’s mouth.

 

“How convenient,” he replied, in a deceptively mild tone. The coffee was bitter but Will didn’t mind it; Hannibal, not accustomed to such fare, took a single sip and abandoned it in disgust.

 

“Are we having dinner?” inquired Will, looking a little amused.

 

“You may do as you please,” said Hannibal, “I believe that I’ll be perfectly fine without ingesting anyone’s saliva or any other revolting substance that would probably end up in the food.” Will grimaced a bit.

 

“Yeah you’re probably right,” he said. This was not a common experience for him; while he might have attracted unwanted attention from his looks and generally odd and awkward demeanor, he’d never been mistaken for half of a gay couple in a conservative small town. His brow furrowed as he wondered what in the hell else he and Hannibal might be considered. After all, it wasn’t as though they weren’t fucking. It would have probably not been an issue if Hannibal didn’t insist on looking so fastidiously out of place. Will found himself staring rather irritatedly at Hannibal’s stupidly perfect hair.

 

“You seem rather out of sorts,” said Hannibal, not unamused.

 

“I’m fine,” muttered Will, “it’s just … why can’t you just wear jeans like a normal person? Let a hair be out of place for once?”

 

“You’re uncomfortable that we don’t blend with the herd here,” observed Hannibal, “although I can’t imagine that I would want to.”

 

“I’m uncomfortable with being treated like we waltzed in here wearing bedazzled sneakers and a tiara,” said Will. Hannibal looked rather sanguine.

 

“They are no more than livestock, Will. Their opinion has no more significance than that of pigs.”

 

“It’s still inconvenient. It’d be nice to eat something without it being spat in. Or worse.” Will shrugged and stood up.

 

“Gonna take a leak,” he said, and headed off toward the bathroom. The two men at the counter shot each other a significant look and the lean customer stood up casually, wallet chain jingling, and strolled in after him. The cook was elaborately cleaning the counter with feigned disinterest in the proceedings, not bothering to keep much of an eye on Hannibal – no doubt having already written him off as a threat; Maureen perched in one of the stools, backside overflowing the sides a bit. Unhurriedly, Hannibal rose as the sound of a muffled shout came from the men’s room; the cook shuffled closer to the end of the counter. When Hannibal stepped into the men’s room, he followed hurriedly, shoving the door open and gaping at what was going on inside.

 

Will, who had no need of assistance (and indeed Hannibal’s presence was more in the spirit of voyeurism than aid), was holding the ceramic tank lid of a toilet in his bloody hands and standing over the inert form of the man who’d followed him in. A switchblade lay on the floor, and the man’s head had a drastic dent over the temple; one eye was swollen shut and the other was rolled up to show the white; blood spattered across the floor and across Will’s face, his sea green eyes savage. Hannibal paused a fraction of a second to appreciate the view before him, and then stepped silently between the exit and the stunned cook, who took a moment to find his voice.

 

“You cocksucking son of a – “

 

“What a terrible choice of last words,” observed Hannibal, conversationally, just before opening his throat from behind with the Harpy that had appeared almost magically in his right hand. The arterial spray painted the tile with a bright red arc before Hannibal let go of the lifeless body, letting the man slump to the floor in an ungainly pile of limbs. Will threw the tank lid down on the inert body in front of him, before picking up the switchblade from the floor and using it to cut the man’s throat – he was already most likely either dead or dying, but there was no sense in taking chances. Hannibal gave him a long look of pure pleasure, and said, throatily,

 

“So ruthless, Will.”

 

“Buffalo Bill usually shoots his victims,” said Will, stepping over the bodies to join Hannibal beside the door, “the mutilations are post mortem?”

 

“Precisely.”

 

Hannibal pushed open the door and Will came through it; Maureen was lounging complacently against the counter, clearly expecting two very different victors to emerge from the men’s room. No doubt it had happened before. Her eyes widened in horrified shock as Will came purposefully through the door, his hands and face bloody, drawing a gun from the small of his back; a small sound emerged from her throat, vocal cords paralyzed with fear. Will, without hesitation, closed the distance between them with two swift strides, placed the muzzle of the gun against her forehead and pulled the trigger at point blank range, killing her instantly. She crumpled to the floor at his feet and silence fell across the room.

 

Hannibal walked through the dining room and turned over the sign to “Closed”, dimming the lights. Then he came swiftly to Will, who placed the gun on the counter for the moment and buried his bloody face in the hollow of Hannibal’s throat, breathing him in deeply as his heart rate began to slow. Hannibal, his pulse even and steady, backed him up to the counter and held him there with a hand on either side of his waist as he calmed.

 

Finally, Hannibal swept a coolly assessing look across the cooking area and the walk-in cooler and said,

 

“I believe there might be something salvageable here for dinner before we go.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I've been slow updating. Getting married on Friday!!!! So next week probably will be slow also. Hang in, I promise I will be updating asap :)


	31. Chapter 31

“I didn’t think you’d lower yourself to making cheeseburgers,” said Will, perched at the counter with a plate in front of him.

 

“There were very few palatable options,” replied Hannibal, sliding onto the stool next to him after stepping casually over Maureen’s inert body to do so, “at least the meat was fresh. However, I refuse to have anything to do with that yellow processed substance that has the audacity to call itself cheese.”

 

“It’s good,” said Will, “you really should try it.” He dragged his coke over and slurped a mouthful loudly through the straw just to watch the expression on Hannibal’s face. Most people would have found said expression quite inscrutable, but Will recognized the flicker of irritated tension around his eyes and grinned a little.

 

“You are incorrigible,” said Hannibal, with fond annoyance.

 

Once dinner had been finished, Will pushed his plate away and looked down at Maureen’s cadaver, his eyes flickering back toward Hannibal.

 

“Are you going to do it here or - ?”

 

“It seems like the most convenient place,” replied Hannibal, standing with lithe economy and deftly rolling up his sleeves, “there’s an appropriate work area in the kitchen. Would you fetch my medical bag from the car please? It’s in the back seat.”

 

When Will returned, moving fast across the silent darkness of the parking lot before locking the door behind him, he found Maureen’s body missing from where he’d left it. Raising an eyebrow internally at the facility with which Hannibal moved bodies, he followed the trail of blood across the filthy green carpet to the swinging door that led to the back storage and prep area, bag in hand. Walking into the prep area – which was well lit, in contrast with the dim restaurant – he discovered Hannibal transferring Maureen’s dead weight from his shoulder to the stainless prep table. He made it look a great deal easier than it should have been.

 

“I would have helped you do that,” said Will, a little pointlessly.

 

“As you see, it was not necessary,” said Hannibal, casually rolling Maureen over so that she was lying face down on the prep table. It wasn’t quite long enough, and her head and lower legs lolled grotesquely over the ends; her hair had come out of its scarf and brushed the tile floor. Will put Hannibal’s bag down on a nearby shelf and regarded the body in silent contemplation for a moment, examining his own conscience and finding it largely undisturbed.

 

“Given your earlier doubts, you are to be congratulated, Will,” commented Hannibal, as though he was reading Will’s mind.

 

“After I was attacked in the bathroom, her death became a necessary one,” said Will, then paused and added, “she really was unlikeable though.”

 

“You shield your conscience with words like necessity,” said Hannibal, reaching into his medical bag and pulling on a pair of surgical gloves. Will watched and found his mouth suddenly dry.

 

“Necessity is a malleable word,” said Will, “but it’s not an excuse. Only a reason.”

 

“Neither of which are, as you would say, _necessary_ – who do you need to justify your actions to, Will? God? I can assure you that our own modest atrocities are insignificant in comparison to his.” Hannibal found Maureen’s scarf and used it dispassionately to tie her hair out of the way.

 

“Maybe myself,” said Will, his sea green gaze following Hannibal’s hand as he plucked the razor sharp scalpel from the table beside Maureen’s outstretched arm.

 

“You sound uncertain.”

 

“I _am_ uncertain. I’m not sure that I recognize myself anymore.”

 

“I believe that you recognize yourself more every day,” said Hannibal, pausing in his work to face Will, his hooded eyes reflecting the light redly, “what you no longer recognize is the shadow of a person that you so effectively tried to hide behind. Now, you find yourself pushing the constraints of forced morality; your conscience no longer pains you, and you wish to find a palatable reason for it.”

 

Will met Hannibal’s gaze for a long moment. Finally, he said, rather abruptly,

 

“At what point did you decide to kill all three of the people in here?”

 

“Five seconds after walking in the door, at most,” said Hannibal. With a swift slash of the scalpel, Maureen’s uniform shirt was split up the center of the back in what had become known as Buffalo Bill’s trademark; with brisk efficiency, he pulled the damaged shirt off her and handed it to Will, who wasn’t quite sure what to do with it and shoved it aside on a shelf, and then sliced the bra neatly in half as well. Will, fascinated despite his vague distaste at having to strip her in order to mimic another killer, watched as Hannibal tilted his chin to the side with a look of cold assessment, and then began the first incision.

 

There was very little blood as he sliced through skin and subcutaneous fat with the keen blade, his hands steady and sure. Without marking the cuts prior to making them, his freehand work was flawlessly executed; pencil straight lines and perfectly aligned angles. Will had seen Hannibal kill before, but not this surgical dissection afterwards; it was a small preview of what he had asked him to do with a live patient, but it was also art. Will felt a tightness in his chest as he watched intently, never turning his face away even when Hannibal slid gloved fingers beneath the edge of the incision and began to carefully peel back the skin, separating connective tissue with infinite patience and precision until he had two thick, diamond shaped pieces of human skin, which he sealed inside a plastic bag from the storage shelf.

 

“What now?” inquired Will, rather breathlessly. Hannibal at him across the newly mutilated body, his mouth curling into a slight smile.

 

“Now, we will need to contact Miss Lounds,” he said, “her biggest fan has found a body, mutilated in the style of Buffalo Bill… she hasn’t called police yet because she wanted to give Miss Lounds an exclusive – if she will only meet her for an interview.”

 

“I assume her biggest fan is a female because it will seem nonthreatening,” said Will, “but what are we going to do with the body?”

 

“Precisely what our killer would have done with it … deposit it in a nearby body of water. We’ll need it _in situ_ for long enough to take a convincing picture for Miss Lounds.”

 

Hannibal picked up a dish towel and followed himself through the diner in his memory palace, wiping down all of the places that they’d touched. Will helped, picking his way through the tangled bloody limbs in the men’s restroom to remove his own fingerprints from the ceramic tank lid that he’d used to bash the would-be assailant’s brains in. Those bodies, they left as they were; the slashed uniform blouse, Hannibal picked up and threw conspicuously on the ground near the bar. Finally, Will spent a few minutes shoving luggage into the back seat to make room for Maureen in the trunk; he also lined it with plastic trash bags from the restaurant. They crackled appreciably as Hannibal folded her neatly inside and closed the lid.


	32. Chapter 32

The first destination, before any correspondence could begin with the intent to lure a journalist to the middle of nowhere, was the South Fork Solomon River. A loop of the river came close enough to Highway 24 to be easily reachable, and there was a rough unpaved road that led all the way to the river, no doubt used by the occasional fisherman or teens looking for a makeout spot. At this time of night, however, it was completely deserted; moonlight filtered through the trees as the car rolled slowly over the bumpy terrain. Hannibal prudently parked some distance from the river bank; it would have been quite unfortuitous to get the tires mired in mud with a dead waitress in the trunk.

 

“You do realize there’s a decent chance of someone else finding it before Freddie can get out here,” said Will, as he climbed out of the car.

 

“It’s certainly possible,” agreed Hannibal. He opened the trunk and looked sidelong at Will, adding,

 

“If that should happen, however, she’ll certainly still arrive.”

 

“Yeah, along with Jack Crawford and every law enforcement within fifty miles,” said Will, a note of anxiety creeping into his tone.

 

“They won’t be looking for _us_ , Will.”

 

“This place is so damn small that that won’t matter – we’re not exactly inconspicuous. And by we, I mean you.”

 

Hannibal gave him a heavy lidded look of disapproval before hoisting the dead weight of Maureen out of the trunk. She was cold and clammy, the wounds in her back sticky and gruesome. Nonetheless, he carried her down toward the river bank, unperturbed; she was hardly the most grisly cadaver he’d moved. Will followed along, digging the burner phone he carried out of his pocket and down to the waterline, then bringing up the camera app. Hannibal, with an artist’s eye, arranged Maureen half submerged in the water, face down to display the missing patches of skin on her back. Her hair floated like kelp, dark against her pale skin. Stepping away from her, Hannibal fastidiously wiped his hands on a handkerchief that he plucked out of his pocket.

 

Will raised the phone and took several pictures; the flash vividly illuminated the signature missing skin and the bloody exit wound in the back of her head.

 

“That should do it,” he said. Hannibal closed the trunk lid and got back inside the car. They’d stop and dispose of the garbage bags in a random dumpster as they passed through Stockton.

 

They checked into a rather dilapidated motel a few miles down the road to use the Wi-Fi and shower; Will insisted on doing the actual checking in, since he looked much less conspicuous than Hannibal (not to mention was wearing less blood on darker colors). The bored desk clerk barely looked up from the television for long enough to glance at his counterfeit driver’s license (Will had noted with some amusement that Hannibal had acquired a CDL for him; perhaps he could pass for a long haul trucker … at least if he had a truck), take the proffered cash and slide a card key across the desk.

 

“Ice machine’s at the end of the hall. Second floor.”

 

“Thanks,” said Will, pocketing the card and heading back out the front door to retrieve Hannibal from the purgatorial Kia. The room was exactly as one would have expected having spotted the motel from the highway; cigarette scarred nightstand, yellowing curtains, scratchy bedspread and aging, mediocre landscape painting on the wall. It would suit their purposes, however; despite Hannibal’s typically highbrow tastes, he could be surprisingly utilitarian when the occasion called for it. Will was discovering new things about him all the time, it seemed. Hannibal, without comment upon their surroundings, slid the sleek laptop from its case, placed it on the desk and powered it on.

 

Will was dying for a shower, but as a good fisherman, also extremely curious about how Hannibal would go about setting the lure.

 

“Please send me the photographs you took,” said the older man, looking sidelong at Will as he lingered at the edge of the desk.

 

“Oh. Yeah, sure.” Will slid the phone out of his pocket and forwarded the pictures of Maureen’s desecrated corpse to the temporary email address Hannibal had made. He shifted a little toward the desk, looming over Hannibal’s broad, cloth covered shoulder as he unconsciously tried to get a better look at the screen; Hannibal, despite the faint scent of blood – or perhaps because of it – smelled _really_ good. It was distracting; in his edgy state, Will found himself hyper aware of Dr. Lecter’s proximity and his breath caught in his throat. His wayward mind kept straying to those capable surgeon’s hands, gloved and covered in blood. Hannibal glanced up at him with a shadowed heat in his claret colored eyes, before turning back toward the screen; it cast a cool glow over his features, throwing his cheekbones into sharp relief.

 

He brought up an email window and flipped through the photographs that Will had taken earlier; Will, driven by pure instinct, leaned down and nuzzled into the side of Hannibal’s neck, breathing in his clean, masculine scent tinged with metallic blood. Hannibal exhaled a small sigh.

 

“Are you trying to distract me, Will? It’s extremely effective, but this is rather time sensitive,” he said. Will responded by biting down with small, sharp canines, just enough to sting, and then kissed the spot he’d just bitten.

 

“Sorry,” he said, not sounding in the least sincere. Hannibal looked rather discomposed for a moment, before gathering himself enough to type an email that definitely sounded nothing like his usual tone.

 

_Dear Mrs. Lounds_

_I live in Stockton Kansas and am a Huge Fan of your work. You are the bravest woman I know of and I would Really Really Love to meet You. I have a big story to share with You. I found something today near my house. I was going to call the Police but I thought You would like to know about this story First and all I want in return is to give You an interview about What I found. I took a picture so You know I am telling the truth. Please Please meet me. I will give You til 9 am to think about it as You may be Asleep but soon Other People will find out._

_Your Biggest Fan_

_Maureen_

_Stockton KS_

 

Will read this missive and snorted.

 

“You surprise me more every day,” he said. Hannibal offered him a sidelong slanted smile that briefly exposed a sharp canine before attaching the picture he deemed best and hitting send.

 

“You know they can track the IP address,” he added.

 

“It doesn’t matter,” said Hannibal, rather dismissively, “by the time anyone manages to unravel the security trail, this computer will not be with us.”

 

“You didn’t tell her to come alone,” observed Will, “smart.”

 

“Ms. Lounds has a remarkable sense of self preservation,” said Hannibal, “she’d perceive the threat immediately.”

 

“She might anyway,” said Will, wryly, “we did just send her a picture of a dead body.”

 

“That’s the entertaining part,” said Hannibal, with the placid amusement of a big cat, “life would be dreadfully dull without an element of uncertainty.”

 

 


	33. Chapter 33

Once the email had been dispatched, Will turned away from Hannibal’s backlit profile reluctantly and went to dig some toiletries and clean clothes out of his bag before heading into the small bathroom for a much-needed shower. Hannibal, despite being dirtier than Will, was sanguine; while the shower ran, he occupied himself with tidying and organizing his medical kit and sterilizing his equipment, keeping an ear open for an email notification. He was not entirely certain that Freddie would respond until morning, as it was very late, but 24 karat gold ambition like hers didn’t allow for many early nights.

 

Will emerged from the bathroom in a cloud of bergamot scented steam, his wet hair combed back from his brow and curling at the nape of his neck, dampening the soft fabric of the t-shirt he was wearing. His nostrils flared at the sharp scent of rubbing alcohol, eyes widening slightly as he took in the sight of Hannibal turning toward him a fraction with a pair of gleaming forceps in one hand, still bloodstained as he put things away. The blood on his shirt was a stark contrast to his clean forearms and hands. Will inhaled instinctively and expelled a nearly silent sigh.

 

“Anything yet?” he asked, deliberately shifting his attention toward the glowing laptop screen instead of Hannibal’s gracefully predatory form.

 

“No,” said Hannibal, tidily closing the medical bag and moving it to the nightstand. He spun neatly on his heel and came toward Will, halting at a distance that was close enough to feel his warmth but not touching him, not yet.

 

“We may very well not hear anything from her until morning,” he added, meeting Will’s gaze as the younger man’s pupils expanded at his nearness.

 

“Or at all,” said Will after a second’s pause, “there’s no guarantee she’ll even respond.”

 

“She’ll respond,” said Hannibal, with his usual solid confidence. He ran a possessive hand over Will’s flank and squeezed.

 

“She won’t be able to resist.”

 

“You are a connoisseur of curiosity,” breathed Will, a wry note touching his tone despite the faint tremor that shook him.

 

“We are just alike,” replied Hannibal, his warm hand splayed across the firm side of Will’s waist. It was Will who couldn’t resist another second; tilting his chin up, he closed the distance between them fully, lips parting slightly as they met Hannibal’s, a nearly inaudible moan of relief deep in his throat at the contact. Hannibal returned the kiss with possessive intensity; as his tongue slid hot against Will’s, he nudged him backward a step at a time until his back met the wall and trapped him there with the full length of his body flush against the younger man’s. Will canted his hips shamelessly forward to push his groin firmly against the thick line of Hannibal’s erection as he wrapped his arms around the muscled span of Dr. Lecter’s shoulders to pull him closer. Raw lust spiraled through his body, hot and dizzying; he was moaning softly into Hannibal’s mouth as a capable hand slid beneath his shirt to tease one taut nipple.

 

Then, the unassuming ding of an email notification interrupted. A low growl of annoyance rumbled in Hannibal’s throat and Will swore emphatically. Muttering something about Freddie Lounds and her ability to piss him off even hundreds of miles away, he lowered his arms and tried to catch his breath. Hannibal, looking considerably rumpled himself, a faint flush across his noble cheekbones, exhaled a slightly unsteady sigh and then turned away and crossed the room to the computer and leaned over the desk to pull up the in-box.

 

_Hi Maureen,_

_I must encourage you to report a crime to the police, of course. Please provide details of your location for an interview; I would love to tell your story. I can be in Topeka in four hours._

_FL_

Will came over to read over Hannibal’s shoulder, the close proximity making heat rise in his cheeks. He snorted after reading this note.

 

“Encourages her to report a crime,” he reread aloud in a deeply sarcastic tone, “she doesn’t want to get _herself_ arrested, that’s all _that_ is.”

 

“Of course,” said Hannibal, beginning to type a response.

 

_Hi Mrs Lounds!!!_

_So excited to finally talk to You and Meet You in person! I will wait for You at St Thomas church here in Stockton KS. I will be There at 7 AM._

_Your Biggest Fan_

_Maureen_

Hannibal hit send and then turned toward Will.

 

“We might as well take the opportunity to get some rest,” he said, “it will be some time before Miss Lounds arrives – it’s a fair drive from here to Topeka.”

 

“We’re really doing this,” said Will abruptly, mingled wonder and unease creeping into his voice. A surge of electric excitement shot down his spine, tingling and shortening his breath for a moment, tempered and somehow enhanced by an acute stab of anxiety.

 

“Will,” said Hannibal, his low pitched voice warm with promise, deadly in its affection.

 

“Did you doubt it for a moment?”

 

Will swallowed hard and shook his head mutely. He shivered slightly under Hannibal’s touch as a warm hand slid behind the nape of his neck and gripped him there firmly, tugging the damp curls idly through his fingers.

 

“I have anesthesia,” said Hannibal, his voice a rough caress, “it is your choice whether to administer it or not – shall I be merciful or cruel?”

 

“When has Freddie Lounds ever shown mercy to anyone?” said Will at last, meeting Hannibal’s burgundy eyes. A smile touched the monster’s lips then, approval warm in his severe features.

 

“It will be as you wish, Will. You have only to ask.”

 

*

 

The following morning dawned hazy and damp, cool winter rain pattering against the flat plains of Kansas. While Freddie Lounds, comfortably ensconced in a rented SUV, sped down the highway from Topeka with a cameraman and a bodyguard thinly disguised as a photographer, two young boys raced toward the riverside, ready to reel in some fish while the rest of the world was waking up. What they found, however, was something entirely different.


	34. Chapter 34

Freddie Lounds, dressed to the nines despite the hours of travel in the wee hours of the morning, was approaching Stockton, comfortably ensconced in the back seat of a spacious SUV as the sun rose. She was scrolling idly through her blog on her phone, red lacquered nails immaculate and gleaming in the light from the screen.

 

“We’re almost there, Miss Lounds,” the driver informed her, in a deferential tone.

 

“How far?” asked Freddie, without looking up.

 

“Half an hour or so, tops.”

 

“Turn the radio on – something local, I think,” she said, in her deceptively sweet tone. The cameraman occupying the passenger seat obligingly began flipping through the local stations; a brief blare of Hank Williams Jr, then a fire and brimstone preacher exhorting the “hellbound homosexuals” to change their ways before they ended up in the “Fiery Pit” (earning a slight sigh and a roll of the eyes from Freddie)… finally, a news channel was coming back from a commercial break.

 

“This just in!” exclaimed an excited voice aiming for solemnity and not quite managing it. Freddie’s instincts perked immediately.

 

“Turn it up,” she said, leaning forward slightly.

 

“The body of an as-yet unidentified female has been found,” announced the radio, “our source was not able to confirm the cause of death – however, it is certain that it was a homicide, and though police have yet to comment, a source has reported that the body had been subjected to some mutilations.” Freddie was swept with jubilation at the probable confirmation of the mysterious Maureen’s report; though she was disappointed at not finding the corpse _in situ_ , it was probably safer legally speaking for someone else to have found the body. She’d still be on hand to get the scoop long before her Washington counterparts had any idea that it was a Buffalo Bill murder. The body would no doubt have been removed to whatever passed for the local coroner’s office by the time she hit town; this was the middle of nowhere, she highly doubted they had much of a forensic team. More likely a couple of patrol cars, any specialists would have to come out from wherever the closest large city was. Which gave her plenty of time to make her rendezvous with Maureen.

 

It hadn’t escaped her notice that the entire venture was suspicious; no phone contact, all email.  But it would be a gamble that paid off; she was confident of it – it seemed that whoever Maureen was, she’d been telling the truth about finding the body at least. She drew her pistol and laid it casually on the bench seat next to her as the SUV crawled into the gravel parking lot of the church, tires crunching over the rough terrain. It was a tiny church with whiteboard siding, half obscured in the morning mist. They came to a halt close to the front doors; Freddie leaned over to the brawny man behind the wheel and said,

 

“Pete … please go inside and make your acquaintance with Miss Maureen … Calvin and I will stay here until you come back.”

 

The bodyguard nodded brusquely and slid out of the SUV, unsnapping the strap of the holster across the butt of the gun on his hip. His footsteps crunched across the gravel; Freddie watched intently as he quietly slunk up the old wooden steps and paused to the side of the door, leaning over to try the handle and then stepping aside as the door swung open. Cautiously, he disappeared inside.

 

“Wherever did you find him?” asked Calvin, brushing silky brown bangs out of his eye and tucking the strands behind one pierced ear.

 

“He was a recommendation,” said Freddie, airily, “a friend of a friend who recently left the army.”

 

“He seems very competent,” offered the cameraman, smiling a little as he watched the front of the church.

 

“Very,” said Freddie, looking rather smug.

 

“Want the radio back on?”

 

“Yes, but not too loud,” decided Freddie, resting a gloved hand on her pistol.

 

“I’m gonna go ahead and get my gear out of the back,” said Calvin, before hopping out of the truck and popping open the hatchback to rummage around in the baggage.

 

The news correspondent on the radio was still speculating on the murder, when he went silent for a brief second and then said all in a rush,

 

“Sorry folks, I’ve just received word of another murder in Stockton – actually two. Leonard Dawson, aged 46 and William Pratt, 39 were found dead at Norton’s Diner where Pratt was a short order cook. Their bodies were discovered by Brent Norton, the owner of the diner, when he arrived there this morning. Dawson and Pratt were killed in a brutal altercation in the men’s room. There is also a missing third individual who was scheduled for work at the time that the men were murdered – Mrs. Maureen Talbot, age 37.”

 

Freddie’s eyes widened a fraction at the last name mentioned; she picked up her gun reflexively, chambering a round with a hand that shook slightly.

 

“Calvin! Get back in here!” she said sharply. There was no response; a glance at the clock in the dash told her that Pete had been inside for nearly ten minutes, certainly long enough to verify that all was well. Quickly slamming the locks down on all the doors, she swore as she spotted the open hatchback, leaning over the back seat as far as she could to try and close it without getting out of the vehicle, but it was out of reach. Abruptly, a handful of her curly red hair was grasped roughly by a hand just out of sight to her left; uttering a scream of terror and dismay, she tried to pull free; her finger tightened on the trigger, firing three shots through the back of the seat. She was dragged mercilessly over the seat into the hatchback and over the luggage, kicking and fighting the entire way. Halfway out of the hatchback, she could see Calvin lying on the ground just behind the rear wheel; curled over on his side, he was unmoving, a bloodstain spreading from beneath him.

 

Screaming at the top of her lungs, she tried to pull away from the strong hands that hauled her forward; she couldn’t see from beneath the red curtain of her trademark curly mane of hair and fired blindly, flattening one of the SUV’s tires and finally losing her grip on the handgun when she fell out onto the gravel; it was kicked away by her assailant. Envisioning her own body with missing patches of skin turning up in the nearby river, a burst of adrenaline threw her into action; she lunged forward, trying to crawl away and get to her feet, scraping holes into both her tights and knees and not caring.

 

“Pete - for fuck’s sake where are you?” she screamed, even as her brain registered the futility of it – if he hadn’t been incapacitated somehow, the gunshots would have drawn him no matter what.

 

“I’m afraid Pete won’t be able to make it,” came a familiar voice from above her, as a booted foot connected with her side, rolling her over onto the ground where she lay gasping for breath and finally getting a look at her assailant.

 

“Hello, Freddie,” said Will. A wry grin touched his face as he glanced just beyond Freddie; she followed his glance with mounting dread. Hannibal was standing casually beside the SUV, a faint spray of blood spatter across the side of his face. He was holding a syringe.

 

“Miss Lounds,” he said, low pitched voice imbued with subtle menace. The color drained from Freddie’s face.

 

“Will still owes you a death,” he said, “what’s to be done about that?”


	35. Chapter 35

Just as Jack Crawford’s team were receiving a call from Kansas local authorities that they had a possible Buffalo Bill-type situation on their hands, the dusty, unassuming looking Kia turned off the main highway. Freddie Lounds was a bundled up form beneath a blanket in the back seat; while she looked as though she was curled up asleep, under the blanket, her hands and feet were efficiently tied together despite the chemical cocktail Hannibal had subdued her with. Will, his pulse racing with the actual reality of what they were doing, of what Hannibal would and could do for _him_ , watched the fields fly past, stretching into the flat landscape of Kansas in all directions.

 

“Where are we going?” he asked, slightly breathless. Hannibal glanced sidelong at him, the cold wintery sunlight glinting redly in his irises.

 

“A secluded home, miles from any potential … interruptions,” he said.

 

“Whose home?” inquired Will, slightly taken aback.

 

“Ours – or at least for the time being.”

 

“You rented a house for this?”

 

“What surprises you about that? What we are doing requires privacy,” said Hannibal, “besides, this particular home is uniquely equipped for our purpose. It used to be a mortuary.” Will uttered a surprised bark of laughter.

 

“That’s morbid, even for you,” he said, casting a glance over his shoulder at their unconscious prize in the back seat.

 

“I prefer practical,” said Hannibal, with rather feline amusement, “the former owner passed away recently and the family have yet to have the place properly gutted – I should think it will prove perfectly adequate.”

 

“Speaking of properly gutted,” murmured Will, thoughtfully.

 

“Have you decided what you’d like to take from Miss Lounds, Will?”

 

“Not yet … but I’m sure it will come to me.”

 

After some time, they traveled up an aging paved driveway toward a large two story house with tall columns across the front; it looked quite stately, aside from the wooden sign hanging from a wrought iron post that identified it as GOSLING’S MORTUARY. Quaint transom windows framed an elaborate widow’s walk on the second floor. Hannibal pushed a series of numbers into the key box that hung over the front doorknob and fished out the key.

 

“I’ll get Freddie,” said Will, who usually left the body-moving to Hannibal, but felt a fierce sense of investment in this process - it was highly personal this time. Hannibal unlocked the door and went to retrieve their luggage and his medical bag. He had also brought a cooler along. Freddie Lounds was indeed as slim and delicate as the hypothetical pig Will had once described her as - the elaborate game of deception he’d played with Hannibal had led them here after all. Even a dead weight, she was not difficult to carry. On the way through the foyer, she lost a shoe as Will kicked the door closed behind him.

 

“Where shall I put her?” he asked.

 

Hannibal was already moving around the house, scrutinizing the genteel décor. Two long couches occupied the side of the large foyer, dark wood paneling sober on the walls. He nodded toward one of the sofas.

 

“Anywhere will do for now. Please wait a moment here for me – I wish to inspect the facilities in the basement before we begin.” He promptly disappeared down a hallway and out of sight, leaving Will alone with Freddie. He perched on the sofa opposite her and watched with intense interest, elbows resting on his knees, as she began to stir. Finally, her eyelids fluttered open groggily and her blue eyes widened as she stared at Will, sitting casually across the unfamiliar foyer. She tried to sit up, struggling against the rope that expertly bound her hands and feet, and having assessed that there was no immediate escape to be had, shifted around until she managed to place her feet on the floor. She did not cower, Will had to give her that much.

 

“So,” she said at length, “is this the love nest? Not exactly what I was picturing.”

 

“What _were_ you picturing?” inquired Will, genuinely curious. She considered for a moment, and said,

 

“Perhaps a pretentious hunting lodge with deer antlers on the wall and a library full of obscure Greek texts full of thinly veiled homosexual references? I can’t imagine that Hannibal would want a dog, but perhaps he’d indulge you. After all, you’re not the only one who collects stray mutts these days.”

 

Will, who could certainly imagine Hannibal acquiring such a place, merely looked amused at the barb.

 

“You’re going to have to do better than that, Freddie,” he said.

 

“Or else what, you’ll kill me and eat me? You’re not Hannibal, Will. You don’t have it in you. Think how much you’d regret it later – your conscience wouldn’t let you sleep for days, I bet. Where is he now? You could let me go now and avoid all of that.”

 

“You’re right, Freddie – I’m not Hannibal. And I _could_ let you go. But I won’t – there’s something I want to see first.”

 

Freddie’s brow furrowed slightly for the first time. Her composure was betrayed simultaneously by a rush of hope at the word _first_ , implying that she might have a chance to live after all, and a sickening  clench of dread at whatever Will could possibly want to see that would necessitate keeping her.

 

Not wanting to give him the satisfaction of asking, instead, she said lightly,

 

“So, how long _have_ you two been an item? You are sleeping with him, aren’t you? Oh, you definitely are, just look at that blush. Has it been going on since Baltimore? Or only Florence?”

 

Will regarded her in suddenly contemplative silence, and did not reply, his eyes narrowing a fraction in thought.

 

“Am I embarrassing you?” she asked, in a mock sympathetic tone, “I bet this is your first time with a man, isn’t it? Don’t you worry that he’ll get tired of you and eat you in a _literal_ sense?”

 

“Has anyone ever told you that your tongue will get you into trouble one day, Freddie?” asked Will, calmly. There was a spark of fierce delight in his green eyes that Freddie mistook for ire. She smiled sweetly.

 

“Of course. You should really leave with me and let me interview you. I’d love to tell your story, and we both know that Hannibal is going to kill you sooner or later. He’s already tried – more than once. I bet Jack Crawford would forgive you if you were to tell your side of it. I heard that he was furious after he found out you’d been … assaulted … in Louisiana. Of course you and I both know that was all consensual, don’t we? You let him fuck you while you were bleeding out … so kinky, but I always knew you had that in you, and who _wouldn’t_ think Hannibal Lecter does? We could write _such_ a bestseller, Will … think about it.”

 

Abruptly, she caught movement in her peripheral vision and fell briefly silent as Hannibal appeared in the hallway, ghostly for a brief moment in a white lab coat over his clothing before he moved into the light. He paid no attention to Freddie at all, stepping across the floor toward Will, who stood instinctively to face him. The younger man’s face was alight with anticipation; Hannibal lifted a hand and rested his thumb over Will’s pulse just to feel the pounding of his heart, pumping adrenaline through his veins. Will tilted his head back a fraction and sighed with pleasure as Hannibal leaned into his throat, nipping a possessive bite into the warm skin.

 

Freddie, eyes like saucers and wishing so badly that she had her camera that she almost forgot how much trouble she was in, daintily cleared her throat.

 

“If I’m interrupting something, I’d be happy to leave,” she said.

 

“Ah, Miss Lounds, pardon me – I’d quite forgotten you were there,” said Hannibal, with placid politeness, before turning back to Will.

 

“You know what it is that you want now, don’t you?” he inquired.

 

“Oh yes,” said Will, “I take it you’ve performed a glossectomy before?”

 

“Of course,” said Hannibal, coolly, filled with a glee he could scarcely contain. Freddie looked confused, so he elected to enlighten her.

 

“Will would like for me to remove your tongue, Miss Lounds; an appropriate choice, if I may say so, and suitable for dinner afterwards – not that you’ll be able to enjoy it, unfortunately.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I have to go to India on business from the 12th til the 21st.... I'll try and update as usual but if not, as soon as I get back!


	36. Chapter 36

For the first time since she’d realized who she’d been accosted by, Freddie looked genuinely terrified. It was a look that Will found immensely satisfying upon her typically smug, calculating features. He made no effort to hide his pleasure and the dawning realization in her eyes made Hannibal’s claret colored eyes hood slightly in appreciation, the scent of fear tainting her perfume as he inhaled the mingled fragrance, sharp in the air.

 

“Look, I know we haven’t had the best history,” she said, her voice quavering slightly as she instinctively tried to press herself backward,

 

“But if you want the world to know the truth, I’m your best ally. I could tell it however you wanted.”

 

“Miss Lounds, you are a tabloid blogger,” Hannibal said, calmly, glancing sidelong to Will with an expectant look. Will did not disappoint.

 

“You don’t need your tongue for that,” he said, meeting her blue eyes steadily.

 

“My god, you really are as bad as him,” she marveled, after a moment of silence during which she was obviously not only absorbing the situation but trying frantically to think of a way out of it.

 

“I wasn’t aware it was a competition,” said Will, amused.

 

“What I intend to do to you is entirely at Will’s request,” Hannibal informed her, “though naturally, I am happy to oblige.” Will shot him a sidelong look of unmistakable desire, sighing almost inaudibly. Dismissing Freddie’s presence for the moment, Hannibal turned to face him.

 

“Will, I must remind you of our previous conversation regarding anesthesia,” he said, “if I proceed as you requested, there is a more than even chance of her dying on the operating table; under such a level of distress, it’s not unlikely that her system could simply … shut down. The likelihood of respiratory failure is also much higher when the tracheostomy is performed afterwards.” He lifted a brow, the corner of his mouth lifting in a half smile.

 

“It’s entirely up to you, of course … I simply wanted to be certain that you would be making an informed choice. Which is more important to you – that Miss Lounds experience extreme physical trauma, or that she lives to regret her transgressions?”

 

Will turned toward Freddie with a judicious look.

 

“I suppose I don’t get a vote?” she said, a distinct tremor to her voice.

 

“You suppose correctly,” said Will, an edge to his tone.

 

Hannibal withdrew a syringe case from the pocket of his lab coat and opened it, displaying two full syringes within to Will. He tapped one gently with the back of his middle fingernail and said,

 

“This will paralyze her without actually administering any anesthetic. She will remain fully aware of what is happening to her.”

 

Touching the other, he said,

 

“This will render her completely unconscious. The choice is yours, Will.”

 

Will, his blue-green gaze fixed intently upon Freddie’s face, considered his priorities.

 

“Freddie, if you want a vote, you’re going to need to make it worth my while,” he said, “I think you know as well as I do that if I ask Hannibal to perform this procedure without anesthesia that he’d be more than happy to do it.”

 

Hannibal looked as content and placid as a lion with its tail swishing, needing neither to confirm nor deny. He’d made his position perfectly clear.

 

“What do you want?” she asked, trembling slightly.

 

“I want you to tell the truth,” he said, “no garish embellishments or added drama for effect.”

 

She tilted her chin bravely to the side and said,

 

“I doubt that anything I could add to this story would make it any more dramatic.”

 

“One more thing,” he said, glancing toward Hannibal briefly before returning his attention to Freddie.

 

“I want you to give Jack a message.”

 

“I’d be happy to. I suppose I’ll have to deliver it in writing,” she said, wryly.

 

“Tell him that everything that happened since Muskrat Farm was what I wanted – what I asked for. Tell him that I have no regrets anymore. I am who I always was – he never knew me, and for a long time, I didn’t know myself. Now I do. Hannibal gave me that. Tell him that I don’t need him, and never did. I don’t need saving.”

 

Gathering her composure, she nodded and exhaled a shaky sigh.

 

“Very well,” said Hannibal, with a warm look in Will’s direction, snapping the syringe case closed and dropping it back into his pocket. He could conceivably decide to use either syringe and Will would be none the wiser; he held that knowledge deliberately in his burgundy eyes as he met Freddie’s frightened gaze, merely for his own pleasure; she had a sharp enough sense of self-preservation to have certainly thought of it. She shuddered involuntarily, looking away toward the floor.

 

“Shall we begin, then?” he said. Will’s eyes darkened, pupils expanding with a sudden rush of exhilaration.

 

“Yes,” he said, roughly, “god yes.”

 

Downstairs, the old mortuary somehow managed to be brightly lit and gloomy at the same time; the juxtaposition of clinical brightness and the chilly atmosphere would have afforded a patient little comfort even if they weren’t lying on a stainless-steel autopsy table for their procedure. Freddie Lounds lay perfectly still upon the table as though she were already dead; ghost pale beneath the harsh lights, she was dressed in a hospital gown that had been folded down to decently cover the tops of her breasts but revealed the vulnerable expanse of her slim neck. An IV needle protruded from her inner elbow, the bag of fluid pendant from where the formaldehyde had once been pumped.

 

Will, restless, paced the green tiled floor, his gaze flickering between the doctor and his patient. Hannibal, intensely aware of Will’s regard, scrubbed up in the nearby sink and meticulously dried his hands before tugging on a pair of latex gloves; his medical tools were already arrayed on the tray beside the autopsy table. Not all of them were things he’d brought in with him; he had conveniently found a few items extant in the mortuary. The sharp scent of antiseptic clung to the air, underlaid by the old chemical smells of the building’s former purpose.

 

Hannibal, properly attired with the necessary surgical mask, paused to savor the sight of Will, free and fierce, prowling around the room and finally settling against the wall in a place where he had a clear view of the proceedings.

 

“We must begin with a tracheotomy in order to keep the airway clear of blood,” said Hannibal, meeting Will’s gaze and holding it.

 

“It’s a common misconception among laymen that the tongue must be removed through the mouth,” he continued, picking up his scalpel and turning his attention toward his patient, severe features once more impassive and clinically detached.

 

“In reality, in order to perform a complete excision, the mandible must be separated, causing the tongue and the floor of the mouth to drop into the neck – from where the operation will actually be completed.”

 

With practiced ease, he slid the scalpel into the pale base of Freddie’s throat; air bubbled up around the incision briefly before he inserted the tracheal tube and secured it. Will shuddered visibly, exhaling a shaky breath as he focused on Hannibal’s gloved hands, already flecked with blood.

 

“There will be some reconstruction necessary to the floor of the mouth to prevent a concavity - a piece of skin from her wrist or thigh should do nicely.”

 

The clipped, professional tone as he described what was about to happen to Freddie Lounds raised the fine hairs on the back of Will’s forearms. There was no denying the effect of what he was seeing and hearing; a faint flush crept across his pale cheekbones, breath steepening very slightly. And Hannibal had only just begun.

 

“Jesus,” muttered Will, under his breath. This was … almost too much. His heart was racing, his jeans already too tight. He felt powerful. Exhilarated.

 

With infinite precision and patience, Dr. Lecter began the incision of the lower mandible, pausing occasionally to rinse away the blood. As he was stripping away soft tissue, the metallic scent of blood mingled with the antiseptic smell of the room. It was a sort of excruciating, pleasurable torture for Will; he hadn’t imagined that it would take so long. A faint sheen of perspiration dampened the back of his neck. Unthinkingly, he ran his palm across his groin and uttered a low, almost desperate moan.

 

“Not yet, Will,” said Hannibal, looking across the room at him; his low-pitched voice was authoritative and Will subsided, but it took all of his willpower to do it. Eventually, he merely watched, mesmerized and suffused with a warm, heavy ache as Hannibal used the Stryker power saw he’d found in the mortuary to complete the mandibulectomy. Freddie’s pretty, delicate face unhinged obscenely at the jaw. Hannibal, using the surgical clips to pull back the skin, examined the exposed opening in her neck; the bloody, surgically precise gap revealed the bulk of the tongue. With infinite care, Dr. Lecter excised it completely, leaving only a small amount of the residual base of the tongue. The organ itself went into the waiting cooler, within a ziplocked bag over ice.

 

Hannibal looked across the table at Will, pausing before he would begin the reconstruction of the floor of the mouth that would prevent Freddie’s bottom jaw from becoming a cesspool of dirty saliva, presuming that she survived. While her discomfort wouldn’t have troubled him, he was far too meticulous to neglect this portion of the operation.

 

“Does it please you, Will?” he inquired, in a low murmur; the answer was obvious, but he wanted to hear it spoken aloud. Will couldn’t see his face beneath the mask but he could hear the pleasure in his voice.

 

“Oh yes,” he whispered, his voice nearly breaking, “I’ve never – you’re – “ He shook his head as if to clear it. It felt as though Hannibal’s scalpel had severed not only Freddie’s tongue but the last stubborn connective tissue binding him to his old life.

 

“ _This_ is exactly what I needed.”


	37. Chapter 37

When everything was complete, Hannibal covered Freddie with a blanket, leaving her motionless on the autopsy table after rinsing the blood down the steel drain. She was a ghastly white, breathing through a tracheostomy tube, the lower part of her face already lividly purple from the mandibulectomy above the swaths of bandages around her throat; her jaw was firmly bandaged shut, hair covered in a blue cap. She was virtually unrecognizable, but her chest rose and fell with the evidence of life.

 

“We’ll leave her somewhere where she’ll be found,” said Will, looking over at Hannibal, who was stripping off the mask and hair covering he’d worn to perform the surgery.

 

“If she’s unconscious with no identification, we should have plenty of time before anyone is looking for us.”

 

“I imagine you are correct,” said Hannibal, meeting the younger man’s gaze and holding it for a long moment. The casual tone of Will’s voice was clearly belied by the slight tremor that shook his lean frame, the heat in his eyes. A curl of dark hair fell across his perspiration sheened brow. He crossed the room toward Hannibal, pausing only to pick up the scalpel from the tray beside the autopsy table. Hannibal watched him approach with intent curiosity and anticipation; for once, he was not entirely certain of what Will intended. It was an exhilarating reminder of what had always intrigued him about Will; he remained where he was, standing beside the sink, and waited to see what would happen.

 

Will, an intoxicated look crossing his fine features, leaned into Hannibal’s neck and murmured his name against his warm skin. Reaching down with his left hand, he pulled back and used the scalpel to slice off the top button of the lab coat Dr. Lecter was wearing. It bounced off the green tiles and rolled away under the table. A look of intrigue crossed Hannibal’s impassive features; he did not move, as Will worked his way down the entire coat until it hung open over his clothing.

 

“Are you feeling destructive, Will?” he inquired, low pitched and enticing.

 

“I don’t know what I’m feeling,” said Will, putting the scalpel down on the nearest surface, which happened to be the side of the sink.

 

“I feel … alive. Maybe that entails feeling destructive.”

 

“The gods often feel destructive,” said Hannibal, lifting a hand to cup the side of Will’s jaw. His thumb ran across the unshaven skin there, making the younger man shiver involuntarily. Will was very nearly exhausted from the length of time he’d spent watching Hannibal’s hands expertly and patiently perform the surgery he’d asked him to do, quivering with exhilaration and desire.

 

“How splendid you are.”

 

“Hannibal,” whispered Will, leaning into the touch. He grasped blindly for the nape of Hannibal’s neck, seeking his mouth insistently as he pressed himself full length against the solid warmth of his body. Strong hands caught him by the waist, pulling him tightly against Hannibal as his mouth was caught in a hot, excruciatingly slow kiss; Will made an involuntary, desperate noise in his throat as his pulse leapt and Hannibal’s tongue finally slid against his, tasting him thoroughly in languid, slick strokes. Will’s palms spread against Hannibal’s shoulders, working beneath the now-unfastened lab coat to tug it away, impatiently trying to get him out of it without breaking the kiss. Hannibal pulled away and stepped back enough to shrug the offending article of clothing off; his eyes glinted redly in the stark light of the makeshift surgery.

 

Will’s bright gaze swept over the strong planes of Hannibal’s solid, graceful body with undisguised lust, pupils so wide that there was barely a blue-green rim around the edges of them. Deliberately, he tugged his own shirt off over his head and tossed it onto a nearby cart. He was shivering, but it wasn’t merely from the cold. Hannibal lifted a hand to trace the scar that arced across his flat abdomen; he was not gentle about it, and Will exhaled a shaky breath before reaching out unapologetically and running his palm firmly over the thick outline of Hannibal’s erection through the material of his trousers, making him catch his breath.

 

“Don’t make me wait any longer,” he said, at once a plea and a demand. With both hands and a faintly defiant expression, he unbuckled Hannibal’s belt; Dr. Lecter remained perfectly still, regarding him with hooded eyes, his expression as impassive as ever despite the faint flush across his high cheekbones. Will, purposeful and single minded in pursuit of what he wanted, unbuttoned Hannibal’s trousers and tugged the zipper down; when this met with no resistance, he lowered himself swiftly to his knees, dragging fabric along with him halfway down Hannibal’s hips to free his engorged cock. He’d never done this before, despite their brief cohabitation, and even in his current state of arousal, he was slightly intimidated by the size of him; however, this was quickly sublimated by the desire to taste the hot, firm flesh. The tip of his tongue touched the corner of his mouth contemplatively, eyes lidded with lust for a brief moment before he lapped experimentally at the thick head, savoring the salty taste and the way that Hannibal exhaled a shuddering breath.

 

Making Hannibal’s iron control slip even that much was a powerful sensation; he wanted more of it. Instinct and desire surpassing any hesitation, he swallowed as much of Hannibal’s length as he could; even when his throat spasmed with the gag reflex, he didn’t stop, saliva pooling at the corners of his mouth as he sucked Hannibal’s thick cock down in deep strokes that were rather more enthusiastic than expert, moaning involuntarily around the hard, slick flesh. Hannibal’s hand caught the curls at the back of his neck and he swore in what Will assumed was Lithuanian; though he had no idea what he’d said, expletives hold a universal tone. Abruptly, Hannibal pulled back, holding Will firmly by the handful of hair that he was currently grasping; Will gasped for breath, a long strand of saliva briefly glistening between his bottom lip and the swollen head of Hannibal’s cock. He was dragged to his feet with a hand under his arm, and then Dr. Lecter seized Will’s hands, pinning them roughly behind his back and shoving him backward until his rear collided with the industrial counter that Hannibal had left his medical bag on.

 

“Is this what you want, Will?” he asked, low and rough. Will tilted his chin back, his breath coming in short, steep gasps; he moaned deep in his throat as Hannibal deliberately caught the muscle between Will’s neck and shoulder between his teeth and bit down without hesitation, sharp canines drawing blood. Dr. Lecter released Will’s wrists to reach between them and unfasten his jeans, pulling them down over his hips along with his boxers; his cock sprang free, flushed an almost angry red, gleaming and slippery at the tip. He toed off his shoes and stepped out of his jeans and boxers, dragging off his socks and leaving everything in a messy, forgotten pile. Hannibal paused to consider him in the context of the room; feral, achingly hard, nude in the harsh lights of a mortuary with the still form of Freddie Lounds lying somewhere behind them and the scent of blood and antiseptic in the air. Beautiful.

 

Will’s hand slid roughly over Hannibal’s bare hip and squeezed, trying to pull him closer. Hannibal caught his wrist and spun him around with a ruthless twist; Will pushed back against him with wanton eagerness as Hannibal’s free hand ran possessively down the smoothly muscled length of his back and roughly palmed his firm rear. He didn’t have to be told to spread his legs; arching his back, he braced himself against the surface of the counter with his forearms, sweat dampened curls clinging to the vulnerable nape of his neck. Hannibal moved away from him briefly to collect the lubricant from his bag nearby; he could not resist pausing to admire the view before him briefly, the long, quivering lines of muscle, pale skin gleaming with a sheen of perspiration under the harsh light. Will, at long last unfettered, free of the morality that he’d worn like an ill-fitting suit.

 

He stroked Will’s back with a reverential touch before slicking the fingers of his right hand liberally with medical lubricant. A shudder rippled down Will’s spine as deft surgeon’s fingers slid down the cleft of his buttocks and slowly, sensually massaged leisurely circles across his perineum; he could feel Hannibal’s warm breath against his shoulder, and then the heat of his mouth as he brushed a kiss across his shoulder blade. Will voiced a low-pitched hum of pleasure when he felt the pad of a slick finger circling his taut opening, slow and teasing before sliding inside to the knuckle, then further; Will pushed his hips back insistently, and Hannibal expertly crooked his finger, turning Will’s sigh into a sharp gasp.

 

“More,” he breathed, an underlying tremor in his voice. He’d been waiting for this for hours, had made himself sick with wanting it; he thought he might lose his mind if he had to wait any longer. Hannibal obliged and slid two fingers in and out of Will’s tight body, gliding firmly over his prostate until Will’s knees were trembling, his cock so hard that it hurt. The tide of his orgasm was beginning to rise when Hannibal withdrew his hand, leaving Will empty and desperate; a faint whimper passed his lips and he was past any shame, having shed it all like a second skin. All that was left was _want_ , elemental and unstoppable.

 

“Will,” was all that Hannibal said; behind it was a weight of desire that made the younger man tremble.

 

“ _Yes_ ,” Will nearly sobbed, as he felt the thick, slippery heat of Hannibal’s cock slide solidly against his entrance and push smoothly inside, past the clinging muscle, filling him completely in a single deep thrust. He lowered his head, nerve endings singing, and braced himself as Hannibal began to move; they were both past the point of trying to make it last. Will was pushed up onto his toes as Hannibal drove mercilessly into him, every slick, solid stroke hitting the sensitive spot that pushed him closer and closer to the edge. He was lost to sensation, gooseflesh rippling over his forearms; strong hands brutally grasped his hips, and he surrendered willingly, allowing himself to be pulled roughly backwards into every thrust. The orgasm building within him was almost frightening in its intensity; it seemed to start in his toes and crawl down his spine, and the muscles in his calves and thighs spasmed lightly. Then Hannibal’s hand encircled the base of his cock and slid over the shaft once, swiping the slippery wetness over the engorged flesh.

 

“Oh – _fuck_ –“ was all that he managed to say before waves of overwhelming pleasure washed over him without mercy, convulsing through his muscles as he shuddered through the most intense orgasm he’d ever had. He was only vaguely aware of Hannibal’s shortening breath; then, the sensation of being filled with pulsing spurts of wet heat nearly sent him spiraling helplessly into a second orgasm.

 

The room was silent save for both of their harsh breathing echoing from the tiled walls. Hannibal, one arm looped around Will’s waist, rested his face against the damp skin of his back, pausing only briefly to kiss him there. Will made a contented noise that was rather muffled, since his face was resting on his folded forearms. After a few minutes, Hannibal straightened and slid out of Will’s relaxed body, creating something of a mess of Will’s inner thighs.

 

“What about Freddie?” asked Will, finally, suppressing a yawn.

 

“Much as I am tempted to leave her down here, I expect that she will not remain insensate for a great deal longer,” replied Hannibal, looking toward Freddie’s unmoving form, “perhaps we ought to deposit her on someone’s doorstep before she comes to.”

 


	38. Chapter 38

They left Freddie unconscious in the sheltered doorway of an Immediate Care facility near Topeka that would open in another half hour. She was decently dressed and swathed in the blanket that Hannibal had covered her with after surgery, but still looked abysmally close to death. Will paused to take a long look at her before they drove away.

 

“She finally made herself useful,” he observed.

 

“Miss Lounds performed a service for you,” agreed Hannibal, “however unwillingly it might have been.”

 

They took a room at a Radisson in Topeka, nondescript among the crowds of a local business convention; Hannibal brought the cooler inside to replenish the ice. It wouldn’t do to have the meat spoil before it could be properly prepared. They were both very tired, and after showering, they spent the next six hours sleeping, sprawled comfortably across the king-sized bed.

 

By the time Will crawled groggily out from underneath the soft comforter to visit the bathroom, Freddie Lounds had indeed come around, though she was clearly traumatized and in a great deal of pain. Upon examination, she was removed to the local emergency room, where the staff marveled over the perfectly executed glossectomy, complete with reconstruction from her thigh (which had been neatly dressed as well). She was promptly given pain medication and sedated, despite the wide-eyed look of protest that she was powerless to voice. Freddie Lounds had been silenced, at least for the time being.

 

The Radisson in Topeka was abandoned the next morning; Hannibal had rented a condo in St. Louis for the month. Will was endlessly amazed by the level of planning and anticipation of all possibilities that were involved in Hannibal Lecter’s existence – that and the fact that he had a seemingly endless supply of money and excellent quality false identifications. Hannibal stopped at a few shops along the way, undoubtedly to purchase pretentious gourmet items that Will couldn’t pronounce. Fortunately, it was cold enough outside for nobody to question him wearing a hat pulled down low and a scarf that hid most of his distinctive face.

 

The furnished condo was one of many in an upscale complex; nobody paid them the slightest attention as they transferred the luggage, shopping bags and cooler from the car to the condo. Inside, it was all modern shiny surfaces and expanses of glass and chrome. The kitchen was perhaps not up to Hannibal’s standards, but it would be quite sufficient for the time they’d be there. Will set about dragging the luggage to the bedroom, while Hannibal busied himself putting things away in the kitchen. It was early evening before everything was sorted out and Will turned on the television. Hannibal was in the open kitchen, chopping Spanish onions and ribs of celery; he looked up when the news came on, Freddie’s picture filling the screen. Ironically, she had been photographed by a tabloid journalist at the hospital while she was asleep, her bandaged, bruised face swollen and nearly unrecognizable. She had finally become alert and coherent enough to write down Jack Crawford’s name, with “FBI” underlined below, but the circumstances of her current condition were still a mystery to the public.

 

*

 

Jack Crawford was at home when the phone call came in to inform him that Freddie Lounds was in a hospital in Topeka, Kansas, _sans_ tongue. He’d been lying on Bella’s side of the bed, trying to forget the pieces of the past that haunted him; he seemed to think better there since Will Graham had disappeared for the second time, his condition undetermined, and Hannibal Lecter had successfully eluded his best efforts to apprehend him in Louisiana. Price and Zeller were in Stockton, Kansas, conducting a forensic analysis on a potential Buffalo Bill killing – the location seemed unlikely to be coincidental.

 

“She won’t give her statement to anyone else.” The Topeka PD supervisor on the other end of the line sounded disgruntled.

 

“I’m on my way,” said Crawford, a sick drop in his stomach as he stood up and headed toward the closet to get dressed and throw some things into an overnight bag.

 

*

 

Will came over to the kitchen counter and perched on a stool to watch Hannibal cook; Hannibal obligingly poured a measure of wine into a deep bowled Riedel glass, a refreshing Riesling Spätlese with a distinctive mineral and citrus flavor that he knew Will enjoyed.

 

While he was sweating onions in a heavy-bottomed Dutch oven, Hannibal glanced sidelong toward Will, content to watch his expression for a moment as he savored the wine.

 

“No lomo saltado this time,” said Will, wryly. Hannibal offered a faint smile, raising a brow a bit at the reference to their old lives. The memories of past betrayals didn’t sting so badly anymore.

 

“No, not this time,” he agreed. He added the celery and carrot with a little water and covered them to steam for a few minutes.

“I’ve been looking forward to this meal,” said Will, faintly flushed with anticipation, and a sidelong glance to the cutting board where Freddie’s tongue was currently lying in preparation for braising.

 

*

 

Freddie’s tongue was still simmering gently with parsley stems, bay leaves and peppercorns when Jack Crawford landed in Topeka three hours later.

 

A driver waited to take him directly to the hospital; it was only twenty minutes from the airport, although traffic dragged twenty minutes into thirty. Jack, his broad shoulders tensed, ignored his driver’s attempts to make conversation until the man subsided into nervous silence.

 

Freddie was alert and waiting for him when he walked into her room; remaining stoic outwardly, he repressed a grimace at her appearance. The only features that were completely recognizable were her wide blue eyes, a little hazy with pain medication, and the tangled mass of bright red hair that blazed against the pillow. The frustration in her body language was palpable. Despite himself, Crawford was not immune to a certain satisfaction at the particular injury she had sustained.

 

“Miss Lounds,” he said, dark eyes analytically assessing her condition, “I’m here to take your statement, since you refused to give it to local law enforcement. I assume there’s a reason for that.” Unable to answer, she attempted a nod and failed due to the brace and swaths of bandages around her neck. Jack slid a laptop from the bag he was carrying and placed it on the tray table, opening a blank Word document before he swung the tray in front of her.

 

“Are you able to type?” he inquired. She pulled the tray closer, brow furrowing with effort, and looked up at him expectantly, slender fingers resting beside the keyboard.

 

“There’s been a Buffalo Bill type murder, four hours away in Stockton,” said Jack, “is that why you’re in Kansas?”

 

_Yes. Came on a tip via email with a pic of the body._

 

“Why didn’t you notify the FBI?” inquired Crawford, eyebrows gathering in irritation.

 

_Didn’t know if it was a hoax._

 

Freddie looked up at him with a hint of her usual faux innocence, causing Jack to pinch the bridge of his nose as if he were developing a headache, and sigh.

 

“What happened to you?” he said, unsure how much time he had before she’d be sedated again and not wanting to waste the time in recriminations; surely she was regretting the decision sufficiently already.

 

_Will Graham and Hannibal Lecter happened. Killed my bodyguard and cameraman. Don’t know where they took me, I was drugged._

Jack couldn’t have been more caught off guard if she’d jumped up and sucker punched him. His face paled to a distinctly ashen shade for a moment, a twist of nausea cramping in his guts. It was a long moment before he could compose himself enough to continue the line of questioning, even with Freddie’s eyes fixed on him, busily storing away his reaction.

 

“Both of them? Are you sure, did you see them both?”

 

_You were wrong about Will Graham. He’s a killer like Lecter. His idea to do this._

 

Jack ran a slightly shaky palm over his face.

 

“What happened?” he asked again. Freddie shuddered visibly.

 

_Will Graham asked Lecter to cut out my tongue. He asked him to use anesthesia in return for me giving you a message. Dr. Lecter injected me with a paralytic instead. I felt EVERYTHING._

 

Despite her brave demeanor, genuine tears welled up in her eyes, brimming over to stain the gauze as she shivered. Jack, trying to maintain his stoic expression, looked at her in genuine horror. He had never liked Freddie Lounds, despised her brand of journalism, but such cruelty was something beyond him. Gathering herself with an obvious effort, Freddie began to type again.

 

_It went on for hours. Graham was watching. I couldn’t see him. But I could hear them both – Dr. Lecter telling him what he was going to do to me like it was a normal procedure, knowing the whole time that I was aware. And then afterwards I could still hear them._

 

Attempting to stay professional, Jack was inwardly reeling at her description of Will’s very active participation in all of this. Hannibal was no surprise, Crawford had long since decided that there was no atrocity that he was incapable of, but Will…

 

“What did they say afterwards? Did they discuss anything about where they were planning to go?” he asked.

 

_Oh they didn’t SAY much. There was quite a lot of noise though._

 

Freddie raised both brows suggestively. Jack winced as if struck.

 

“Are you saying that they – were intimate?”

 

_A pretty way to put it Jack. And believe me there was no coercion involved. I’m afraid your profiler was practically begging for it._

Jack looked vaguely ill. Finally, he said rather formally,

 

“I’m sorry for what’s happened to you.”

 

_I’ll send you a signed copy of my book when it’s finished. Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s time for my medication._

“Wait – one more thing. What was the message that Will asked you to give me?”

 

_Since I never received my part of the bargain, I’m loathe to give it away for free. How about an interview?_

“Forget it,” said Crawford, brusquely.

 

_Worth a try. He said that you never knew him, he never knew himself until Hannibal. And he doesn’t need saving._

Jack’s expression did not change, but his eyes darkened with grief. He went out without another word.

*

 

A few days later, as soon as she had recovered enough to update Tattlecrime, the tragic story of Freddie’s “hours of torture at the hands of a serial killer and unstable former FBI agent” became scandalous and popular news, particularly since she was able to describe the details of not only her involuntary surgery, but the interlude that had followed it while she’d been lying paralyzed on the autopsy table. There was no longer any doubt as to whether Will Graham was with Hannibal Lecter under duress, or what the nature of their relationship was.

 

“It seems that Jack received your message after all,” observed Hannibal, over dinner.

 

“I thought you were giving her the anesthesia,” said Will, his eyes narrowing with distinct outrage.

 

“Since when has Freddie Lounds ever shown mercy to anyone?” quoted Hannibal, raising an unperturbed brow, “you already told me what you wanted, Will.”

 

Will considered this, and finally said,

 

“I suppose I did. But I would have preferred not to have drastically increased the risk of her dying.”

 

“If she had died, your message would still have been communicated,” said Hannibal, looking across the display in the center of the table, “though perhaps not so directly.”

 

“I didn’t know she was aware … afterwards,” said Will, with a mild level of chagrin, “you could’ve said something.”

 

“Would it have mattered?” countered Hannibal, amused, “besides, you were rather insistent. I’m afraid I couldn’t resist you.”

 

 Will considered, savoring the taste of the perfectly seasoned meat.

 

“No,” he said, finally, “her presence was inconsequential. Anyway, I have no doubt that once she gets over not being able to speak, she’ll make a bestseller of it.”

 

“Undoubtedly. You were kind enough to leave her fingers attached.”

 

“So were you.”

 

“This was your design, Will. I was merely the means of carrying it out.”

 

“Don’t try and tell me you didn’t enjoy it.”

 

“There is nothing wrong with taking pleasure in one’s work.”

 

*

 

Later that evening, with the lights of St. Louis spread out below the wide expanse of glass around the living room, Hannibal reached into the bureau drawer and carried an envelope over to Will, where he was comfortably ensconced upon the sofa with a tumbler of bourbon. Will opened it, and two business class airline tickets fell out; nonstop flight from Toronto to Barcelona.

 

He looked up at Hannibal with a smile, blue green eyes warm and alight with pleasure.

 

“I promised you a holiday,” said Hannibal, running a warm hand up the side of Will’s neck, gentle over nearly healed bite marks, “and I _always_ keep my promises.”

 

\- FIN -

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this is it... the end. A huge thank you to everyone who has been following this, and to those who have just stumbled across it and made it through to the end. Heartfelt hugs to those of you who took the time to drop comments and kudos - life's blood for any writer and sometimes the encouragement I needed to get on with the next bit. There's plenty of loose ends for a sequel; I'm not sure whether I'll do that next or something completely different. I hope it was worth the read. From Hannibal and Will, "Au revoir et à bientôt!" ;)


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